


Between

by englishmajor226



Series: Pinwheel [3]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-18 14:16:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 56,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14854331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/englishmajor226/pseuds/englishmajor226
Summary: As Laura begins to reestablish the X-Men, Rogue finds herself once more in Westchester, caught between the two people she loves most.





	1. Regret

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct sequel to both Fray and Twelve, so spoilers for both of those stories abound. Thanks, all. <3

**Chapter One:** **_Regret_**

_New York City, October 2043_

It was a slow thing. The realization she was being lifted up and out of sleep. There had been no nightmares, none that she could remember, at least. It was a dark, weighty sort of sleep, and when her eyes blinked open, she realized the feeling wasn’t entirely invented. A slender, dark-skinned arm was draped across Laura’s naked chest. As Laura’s eyes traveled upward, she realized it belonged to a woman. She was sleeping and she was beautiful, miles of dark skin, dark hair, eyes closed, lashes grazing her cheeks, pink lips slightly parted open. She was on her side, lying flush up against Laura’s own mocha coloring. They were both naked.

_Fuck._

Laura tried to think. There had been a few bars. Had there been… a gay club? Now that she thought about it, the strobe lighting and the glass floor alit with neon flashed across her mind. _Fuck._ Rictor had dragged her in; she had remembered that. Then he’d gone cruising for some boy to take home. And there had been more drinks… and she had been? Where? An image of Laura murmuring something in Spanish to the woman as she took her hand and led her out into the blinking lights of New York City appeared in Laura’s mind. There had been more Spanish, more flirting…even…Laura glanced to the empty wine glasses on the bedside table, lipstick smudged on the rim. And then…god… she had lowered her on the bed, dove between the woman’s legs. She’d made the woman writhe, and later, she had paid Laura in kind.

 _Fuck, fuck, FUCK._   _She promised herself she wasn’t gonna do this anymore. Wasn’t gonna take advantage of another one._

 _Pero es tan fácil,_ whispered el animal.

 _¡Cállate!_ Laura thought. _You got what you wanted, so shut the fuck up. I need to think._

She needed to get the woman--who she was sure was a nice person and all-- out of her apartment, as soon as fucking possible. For a couple of damn good reasons. One, Laura didn’t _do_ mornings. This had been a tremendous lapse in judgement. It was probably because she had been so exhausted these past couple of weeks with all the shit going on at the mansion. Fatigue, even with a healthy healing factor, had been biting at her heels for a while now. Maybe that was why she had fallen asleep without sending this chick packing beforehand. And as for the other reason... Laura knew she had to meet Dani and Rictor—if he was in any better shape— in about an hour to see about a potential alliances with a mutant who might be able to save their asses when it came to getting the Blackbird up and running. She hadn’t meant to stay out that late, hadn’t meant to take anybody home with her, hadn’t meant…

Suddenly, the woman sighed contently, pulling Laura a bit closer to her body. Laura squirmed, immensely uncomfortable. Laura didn’t do cuddling, either.  She let out a frustrated sigh, realizing there was no good way to slip out of her arms without waking the woman beside who was still practically a stranger.

_Well, it’s gonna be the hard way then._

Laura sighed once more, before, as gently as possible, picking up the dark, slender arm currently snaked between Laura’s breasts. She set it aside as carefully as she could. For a moment, the woman seemed to stir, and Laura held her breath, but then seemed to settle back into sleep. Moving to sit up, Laura couldn’t help but groan a little as she stood, stretching for a moment in the bedroom of the apartment she hardly frequented anymore. It was then that Laura took inventory. She frowned as she noted the scattered clothes all over the floor.  Lace bras. Ripped jeans. Stilettos. At least those weren’t hers. Finally, she noticed Logan’s dog tags, strewn on the stained carpet from where the woman had probably ripped them off her last night. Closing her eyes for another moment, silently cursing herself once more, she slowly picked up the tags and placed them again around her neck, before she quietly padded over to the dresser, snagging an old McGill sweatshirt she had on hand. But as she turned around to glance at the woman before putting it on, she noticed the woman- _what the FUCK was her name again?-_ was awake, and staring at Laura intently, a sly, sexy smile on her face.

“Morning, honey,” she said through a grin, a flash of white teeth. _Fuck._ She was pretty. Laura was starting to understand how the night might have actually happened.

“Morning,” Laura said a bit too stiffly, before throwing on the sweatshirt, working it over her head, before pulling on a pair of clean underwear from the dresser as well.

“Looks like I stayed the night,” the woman said again, before her head fell back on the pillow, obviously comfortable enough.

“Looks it,” Laura managed, before picking up what she hoped were her clothes off the floor,  before shoving them in the hamper in the corner of the bedroom. She could feel the tension radiating off her own body, and she hoped the woman did too.  When Laura looked back her way, she realized the woman was finally getting the hint.

“You want me gone that bad, huh?” she asked honestly, moving once more to sit up, still naked, the curve of her breasts doing something to Laura’s inner animal, before she dutifully shut the beast up. Laura stalled for a moment, tightly grabbing her arm with one hand before realizing it.

“I don’t…I have a meeting today,” Laura managed to say. The woman only smirked, before stretching herself, obviously very fucking comfortable being completely naked in some fucking stranger’s bed.

“Oh _yeah._ Your meeting about some kind of plane,” she said. _Fuck._ What else had Laura drunkenly and sloppily revealed last night?

 _No more tequila for you,_ she scolded herself. _Ever. Esa mierda siempre te mete en problemas._

“Just… I need to leave soon,” Laura managed, now picking up the woman’s things and throwing them in the direction of the bed. The dark-skinned woman sighed steadily, before taking the bra from the spot where Laura had flopped it on the bed, putting it on slowly before taking a better look around the place.

“For having enough means to own a plane, your apartment’s sorta a shithole,” she muttered. Laura snorted, but otherwise ignored the comment, choosing instead to stalk into the bathroom momentarily and flick on the faucet, running her hands under the water, before running them through her hair.  She didn’t even bother looking at herself. She knew she looked like shit. Finally, she snapped off the water and walked back into the bedroom to find the woman mostly dressed, thank fuck.

“I don’t live here anymore,” Laura tried to explain. “This place is just…”

“Where you hook up with random women?” she asked through another sly smile.

“ _No,”_ Laura said, now thoroughly tired of this person, wishing beyond hope that she would leave. And quickly. “Just a place to…be alone.”

“Alone?” the woman asked, before arching a brow in suspicion.

“It’s not what you think,” Laura grumbled, crossing her arms as she did so.

“Well, you aren’t alone right now,” the woman teased, even as she threw on the sheer sweater that Laura had been so intoxicated by the night before. Another flash of Laura slowly snaking her hands up it and over the woman’s smooth, toned stomach flashed across her mind. 

“I _know,”_ Laura practically growled.

“Ok, ok, honey,” the woman smiled again. “I’ll scoot.”

A few minutes later the woman was fully dressed, stilettos back on and bag in hand. She was rifling through her purse, Laura assumed for her keys, and Laura had already rudely opened the door for her, showing her the way out. The woman, however, lingered in the tiny kitchen, much to Laura’s dismay. Instead of heading towards the door, she seemed to realize she could torture Laura by stepping in closer to her, so close Laura could hear her pulse in her veins.

“So where’s home really?” she asked finally.

“None of your business,” Laura muttered.

“Honey, I think I at least know _a little_ of your business,” she smiled sweetly, before running a hand down Laura’s front, cupping a beast for a moment through her bulky sweatshirt.

Laura only rolled her eyes, leaning back a bit, before finally grounding out the phrase, “Upstate.” At this, the woman’s curiosity seemed to spike as her smile dissipated some, curiosity growing in her eyes.

“That right?”

“Westchester,” Laura managed.

“Hmmm. So you _are_ from some money,” the woman said, a little too knowingly. “Daddy let you have this apartment in town to get away from being spoon-fed off that silver platter every once in a while?”

Laura physically winced at this, as the weight of the dog tags around her neck suddenly felt a bit heavier. Whatever the woman was playing at, Laura didn’t need this shit. Her anger grew in that moment, and now she was unable to help the small growl that escaped from her lips.

“Wouldn’t quite say that,” Laura finally managed, before gesturing again toward the open door.  Once more, the woman only offered her a smirk, before leaning in close, close enough to kiss Laura, before turning her head slightly and whispering in her ear.

“It _was_ something,” she whispered. Laura only took to leaning back again, crossing her arms rudely.

“Something. Yeah, listen it was fun and all, but-” she began, before the woman cut Laura off.

“It’s whatever baby. See ya,” she said sweetly, blowing Laura a quick kiss before sauntering down the hallway. Laura watched her for a moment, before rolling her eyes and shutting the door behind her.

For a moment, she simply stood there, back to the door, before bringing her hands to her face and running them down it slowly.

_She was a fucking addict. Just couldn’t stop._

_Al menos sabes lo que eres,_ el animal whispered.

Laura growled in frustration, glancing at the sun in the sky and realizing it was probably later than she guessed. Without another thought about it, she walked away from the door. With what little time she had left, she was intent on a shower and, finally, a few precious, important moments alone. Completely and undoubtedly _alone._

 


	2. Pause

**Chapter 2:** **_Pause_ **

It was the time before it really started. The time in between. A different state of consciousness. A brush drawn across a canvas. A kiss good morning. A spark of a match being lit.

It was the sounds he noticed first. The wind bristling through pine needles. The call of birds. Maybe even a stream, a steady, quiet pour of water far off. There were the smells, too. It was summer-- it had to be-- with the wax current and juniper and chokecherry in the air. Oak and Maple, too.

His brows furrowed a bit as he turned over in bed to find the left side empty. Slowly, his eyes lazily blinked open to the vacant spot,  the comforter rumpled and cool. He swiped a hand across it, blinking once more in the late afternoon light. A light from… _where?_

He sat up slowly, laying eyes on a room he didn’t recognize. The rich smell of cedar. Of the several cabins he had once called home in his life, this one didn’t feel familiar. Except that it did. As Logan’s eyes traveled around the room, he began to fixate on the finer details. Marie’s grandmother’s quilt was folded on the foot of the bed. Yashida’s sword proudly displayed on the dresser. The tags...he brought a heavy hand up to graze them from where they hung around his neck. And then…he brought the hand back, staring at it.

_No scars._

In fact… moving his legs off the side of the bed and stretching he realized, too, _no pain._ The absence of wheezing lungs, of coughing up blood. The absence of a fatigue so all-encompassing he felt pressed down by weights. If he tried hard, he could only recall the memory of such a feeling, but the feeling itself was gone.

Slowly, he stood, walking toward the washroom, his boots heavy on the wooden floorboards. He pressed open the door and turned to the sink, before quietly bringing his face up to notice his reflection.

_Holy fuck._

He turned his head a bit to the left. The grey in his hair was gone. It was like someone had taken the clock and rewound it twenty years. Him at…what age? When? Where? He ran a slow hand over the scruff of his beard, then up through his hair, before exhaling steadily.

Silently, he stalked out of the washroom, heading for the main room of the cabin. In here, even hints, signs of a life had built here.. A yoga mat nestled in the corner. A record player on a table near the bay window of the cabin, a sex pistols album still perched on top of it. The little carved wooden turtle Logan had brought back from a trip to Japan, placed purposefully on the kitchen table next to the far wall. On a bookshelf crammed with the classics, little origami paper birds, folded in a variety of ways and colors.

Finally, he eyed the front door. Making a deliberate choice, he walked toward it, pushing it open and taking in the world that greeted him. On all sides, a thick, wild forest, tall pines scraping a brilliant, crystal blue, only faint, white wisps of clouds flecking the sky. It was a savage, untamed place, would have been except for the single cabin and small clearing around it.  He turned then once more to face the unrecognizable home, desperate to understand.

_Marie._

And then, it clicked. The grueling mental sessions with the psychic. The work with memory. The trip back north so Marie could concentrate. The look on Laura’s face as Marie left, even if she had only planned on being gone a week. All of Marie’s years of hard work, of patience. All the years of facing her innermost demons.

_She’d done it._

“Marie?” he asked the empty air, the sound of his own voice strange and harsh on his tongue. _Was she here? Had he missed her?_ Suddenly, he tore back into the cabin, through the living room, past the kitchen to the bedroom once more. He looked around to find nothing, until he heard a sharp intake of breath. He turned, and she was there.

She looked just as she did those final few weeks. Her hair done up in a loose tie, platinum tendrils escaping its hold. The beginnings of fine wrinkles around her still-chocolate eyes. She was in a pair of jeans and a loose, white cotton button-down. She was leaning in the doorframe, a hand gripping the frame a little too tightly, and she was peering intently at him, as if afraid, as if hesitant, as if unbelieving.

“Logan?” She finally asked, moving her hand to her mouth, still staring at him like he at any moment he might disappear.

“You did it,” he said through an odd smirk, although he made no movement, intent on letting her come to him.

“God…” she managed, hesitating a moment more, before quickly striding across the room, stopping just before him. He let his arms drop and watched as she lifted a shaky hand out to him, eyes wide.

“Can I...?” she barely managed to breathe.

“Fuck yes,” he said. And then nimble fingers pressed onto his flannel shirt, making contact with his chest. Then, her tears welling up and suddenly she was crying and he was grabbing her, murmuring a “c’mere,” as he pulled her as close to him. She was still silently crying, and he was murmuring things into her ear, gentle growls punctuated with words like “S’alright, baby. Kid. Calm down.” Finally, the tears subsided, looking up to him through a reddened face once more.

“You look…so _young,”_ she managed, and at this he let out a bark of laughter.

“Well…it’s your head, so you must have wanted to picture me this way.” At this, she wrinkled her nose, playfully swatting him a bit on his chest.

“I did _no_ such thing. I don’t care _how_ you look, sugar. So long as I can…” she said, before she carefully moving a tendril of his dark brown hair off his forehead. She breathed in slowly and added,  “All I did, was this...” gesturing around to the cabin, to the bits and pieces of memories she had patchworked together for them both. All that world-building. _Here. Now._

“Two years of work,” she managed.

“I know, darlin’, and it’s lovely,” he said again, putting a hand out to her face. She leaned into his palm then, closing her eyes once more.

“It’s like you’re back from the dead,” she whispered into his palm, eyes dark and heavy.

“Hey now. Quit that. I just talked to you this morning,” he said, swiping a thumb slowly over her lips.

“You got on me about the coffee creamer,” she said through a little smile, staring up at him once more.

“You know I hate hazelnut,” he muttered through a chuckle.

“And you can’t read my thoughts?” she asked, suddenly curious.

“No, I can’t. Not here,” he said, hands constantly touching her.

“Does it…feel real for you?” she asked sheepishly.

“Not sure what the fuck real means anymore, but I can smell you, and see you, and touch you…” he muttered, brushing a thumb along the outside of her hand.

“It’s been…” she drifted off.

“Thirteen years, four months, and five days…but who’s counting?” he said with a smirk.

“Yeah...” she murmured. “Longer than we've ever been apart.”

“We were never apart, darlin’. At least, not this last time,” he said, running a hand through her hair. And then, with a thought, he added, “So what’s this place meant for anyway? Besides the obvious?”

She smiled coyly, looking at him once more. “It’s a space…where we can talk freely. Where can be together. I decide when, where, and how. As long as no one disturbs me, I can summon us together here whenever wherever. I’m in a deep meditation right now, but if someone were to come in, drop by, they’d shake me out of it.”

“And then it would be back to the same-old, same-old?” Logan asked, a bit wary. Rogue’s smile lessened a bit.

“Yeah,” she finally muttered.

“I’m glad you decided to come here. Or...to the lakehouse I mean, to try it,” he said, remembering how they got there, what it cost them. An image of an unsure Laura filled his mind, before he shook it off.

“It’s my home,” Marie said simply. Meanwhile, Logan was already shaking his head.

“Nah. Westchester’s your home now, kid,” he said resolutely.

“ _Our_ home,” she reminded him. He couldn’t help but smirk at this a little, holding her closer.

“Heh. Yeah. Our home. You think Laura’s gonna get the plane up and running?” he asked, before he felt her pull him closer, her lips just lingering beyond his ear.

“Shut up,” she whispered fiercely. Logan could only lean back a little, cocking a smug eyebrow at her.

“ _Excuse_ me?” he asked with a smirk.

“Kiss me,” she demanded. He hesitated a moment too long, and then she was clawing at his back, pulling him closer.

“God _damn it._ Kiss me, Logan,” she barely managed to say, before his lips were on hers in an instant, the foreign and familiar feeling jarring and real and nothing and everything all at once. The warm slide of her tongue, her fingers running through his hair. All the sensations he’d imagine feeling once again loud and reverberating through his consciousness.

“Holy _fuck,”_ he breathed, as they momentarily broke apart. She grinned widely at him before attacking him once more, pressing herself hard up against him. He stumbled a bit, before whipping an arm out to steady himself on the desk behind him to regain his balance.

“You ok?” she asked through a breathless laugh. He growled, turning them both roughly and pinning her against the desk behind them.

“Heh, yeah. Just a little rusty’s all,” he muttered. She only smiled mischievously as she reached for the hem of his shirt, and he watched as she brought it up and off him. He heard her then suck in a sharp breath at the sight of his chest, and he could already guess what she’d find. Smooth, perfectly sculpted muscle. Not a scratch on him.

“No scars,” she murmured. He looked at her intently as she carefully ran a hand up his torso, a shiver shooting down his spine from her languid movements as she took inventory.

He didn’t open his eyes until he heard her add quietly, “I sort of...miss it.”

“The scars?” he said, looking up to her once more.

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe just your age on you,” she muttered to herself, but he was only half-listening, now running his hands around her waist and hoisting her up on the desk. Slowly, he unbuttoned her shirt, but on the second to last button, however, he felt her hand resting on one of his wrists. He looked up to her then, just in time to hear her murmur. “I’m sorry I’m not... younger. I... don’t know how to do that, yet. Change myself for you here.” He gently put his hand over hers before leaning into, his lips lingering just beyond her ear.

“You think I want you younger? Want you to change? _Jesus,_ Marie. I want you just how you are,” Logan muttered.

“But you’re _perfect,”_ she said, eyes wide. Logan frowned a little, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I ain’t real, kid. You are.”

“You’re real to me,” she murmured, but he had already undone the last of the buttons on her shirt and slide it off her arms to the floor.

“Jesus fucking _christ_ ,” he managed to say as he easily snapped off her bra. “Now that’s a vantage point I’ve fucking missed.”

He could feel her blush, even as he worked his mouth down her neck and to her breasts, sucking gently on one nipple.

“God…. _Logan_ ,” Marie arched under him, wrapping her thighs more firmly around his waist. He moved down her body with kisses until he got to her jeans, but she was already pulling him back up.

“Gotta fucking taste you, baby,” he barely retaliated, but she was shaking her head, hopping off the desk and going for his belt.  

“Not _yet,_ ” she said quietly, undoing the buckle and working the belt slowly off him. “I’ve gotten to feel things...you’ve made me feel things for _years,”_ she murmured, slowly undoing his jeans. “All the things you’ve told me, all the ways you’ve made me come. Let me give something to you…” She then moved in for another kiss, only to bite down on his bottom lip roughly. He let out a pained growl and leaned back a bit, and she grinned wickedly at him.

“Just because you haven’t done this in over a decade doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on you, cowboy,” she whispered into his ear.

“So we can still feel pain in this little dreamland you’ve whipped up?” he teased, but then she had him in her hand, gripping his length tightly, and when she started to stroke he saw stars.

“I wanted to keep things as real as possible,” she continued to whisper into his ear, breath coming in hot as her lips caressed the side of his neck, before nipping him again at his pulse. He couldn’t contain the angry growl that escaped his lips, but let her do it, before barely hearing her murmur, “What’s pleasure without a little _pain?_ ”

Then she sank lower, leaning him up against the desk and she had him in her wet, mouth, and what her tongue was doing had him cursing under his breath, “Holy fuck….Marie. Baby. _Baby.”_

She sucked and tasted and licked and teased until he could hardly fucking stand it, before taking his entire length into her mouth, so deep he could feel himself hit the back of her throat.

“ _Motherfuckingjesuschrist!!”_ he shouted, and then, impatient, he lifted her off him, hoisting her up and carrying her over to the bed, her legs still wrapped around his waist.  He sat down with her as she worked her way out of her jeans and underwear, eyes hungry, he let her make a show of it, before she gently straddled him once more and then she was slowly sinking onto his length. She cried out as she did so, and it was all he could do to not flip her around and rut into her so hard she’d break. But then she was reading his mind, because suddenly she took his face between her hands and he realized there were tears in her eyes.

“Don’t hold back,” she said, staring directly at him.

“ _Marie_ ,” he managed to growl.

“Fuck me like you haven’t fucked me in ten years,” her voice was a low, sultry whisper.

“ _Thirteen,_ ” he muttered.  She only raised an eyebrow at him, the challenge etched into her every feature.

In an instant, while still inside her, he turned them both so that she was underneath him. He easily pressed her down into the mattress, his full weight practically on top of her. Her eyes were wild and brazen as she showed a force of strength, lifting her head up to kiss him roughly, and he snarled, grabbing both wrists and holding them up above her head, pressing her back down. Pulling out quickly, he gripped her hands more tightly before shoving himself back in again, hard and heavy.  

“Oh _god,”_ she breathed, sucking in some air as he pounded into her.

“Feels fucking real enough now, doesn’t it baby?” he asked, his voice rough and savage in her ear. He could feel the vitality coursing through him, the life force and _energy,_ and he didn’t want to even begin to imagine how much work it had taken Marie to create the reality, the details so fucking lifelike it was practically disturbing. With that in mind, he drove into her harder, and he realized she was trying to remove her hands, desperate to touch him. He growled and held them tighter, so tight he would have left bruises.

“Y-yes,” she stuttered, as he continued to fuck her roughly, taking advantage of his newly established strength.

“Do you believe me _now_ ? That I’m here? That I’ve _always_ been here, with you?” he muttered into her ear.

“ _Yes,”_ she breathed. “God. _Logan!”_ She cried out in pleasure as he gave it to her hard, deep, fucking her with wild abandon, until he felt his body rumbling, filling her effortlessly, the sweat pouring, her eyes clear as she stared at him, refusing to break away from his gaze. As he exhaled, slowly releasing her arms, she immediately brought a hand up to his face, running a thumb over the scruff of his beard.

“You’re _here_ ,” she echoed quietly. He sighed, lowering himself to his side.

“I never left,” he said again, his age-old mantra to her, the fact he’d been reminding her of for thirteen long years, although he wondered, not for the first time, if that was his truth, or hers.

  


\--

Her breathing was deep and even, although her brows were the slightest bit furrowed, as if she was concentrating on something in her sleep. They had both drifted off after some time, but it wasn’t long after that he was awake again, and as he pulled himself out of some simulated reality of unconsciousness, he realized that it was the first time in over a decade that he _had_ slept, or at least experienced the illusion of it.

He turned to her again and instinctively ran a smooth, scarless hand down one of her arms. She was frowning a bit, and he realized she must be cold. He found himself pulling a quilt--the one her grandmother had made her--from the foot of the bed, and he covered her gently with it. Suddenly, her face relaxed, and Logan let out a low rumble of contentment.  For a long while, he watched her, taking advantage of the stillness his consciousness as a part of Marie’s collective mind had afforded him. More than ever before, he was immensely well adept at noticing every fine detail, now down to shifts in current in the air, how it all moved. The light, too, never escaped him, and as he lay there listening to Marie breathe, he noticed easily and early on that the light was, in fact, wrong. Some hours had to have passed, but the sun had remained fixed in the same spot in the sky, shafts of yellow warming their skin in the same places. Things had seemed to pause, to freeze, and the eerie quiet from outside proved what he feared to be true: wherever they were currently residing in Marie’s mind, whatever portion of memory, when Marie wasn’t concentrating on it, it lost a bit of its lustre, its potential to be real.

It should have been a harsh reminder of the reality before them: that it _wasn’t_ real. But, the extent of the work, the level of concentration Marie must be exhibiting was not lost on Logan. He knew Marie had been steadily building this space in her mind for years now, and it was a random day, not so long after they had relocated to Westchester, that she had announced to Laura her plan to travel to Hay River alone to meditate deeply, to try, for the first time in thirteen years, to lay eyes on Logan.

Laura hadn’t liked the plan. Hadn’t wanted for Marie to travel alone. But Marie had insisted, and now, Logan was glad she had. Things at the school were intense; Marie was overworked and thinner than usual, working late and staying up past when she should have been in bed trying to understand the inner workings of Westchester, just exactly how Storm had run the school back then, in the feeble efforts to reopen it.

But still, she wasn’t _exactly_ at rest now. Marie herself was probably still meditating in their old bedroom at the lakehouse, and if he focused enough now, he could sense  the outside, the real world, thrumming around her. But how long had she been meditating? She would have to eat soon, sleep too. For real. Something about this knowledge should have made him feel a greater sense of apprehension, but, instead, he tried as hard as he could to lock away any selfish feelings, resigning himself to nudge the sleeping illusion of Marie awake.

“Marie,” he murmured, leaning into her a bit more. Again, her brows furrowed, but she didn’t open her eyes.

“Hmm,” she purred, and he was instantly reminded of those times at the lakehouse, those few precious months they had shared before things got really bad, when they had their moments of true happiness.

“Come on, wake up,” he said, running another solid hand down her arm. She finally blinked and then her eyes flew wide, before they focused, looking at him more intently. Just then, the sound of the birds came back, and the light darkened from yellow to orange, and then he swore to purple, just in a matter of moments.

She looked at him as if she was seeing him again for the first time.

“It’s you,” she said through a small smile, moving her hand once more through his hair on his temple.

“Heh, yeah kid. S’me. But I need you to wake up now, for real,” he muttered. When she looked at him quizzically, he added, “Time to go back to the real world.”

A deep frown from her, another look of confusion.

“What? Why?” she asked, sitting up once more. Logan mimicked her movements, still keeping a steady hand on her thigh.

“Because it’s been hours since you’ve really eaten, or slept,” he muttered.

“I was just sleeping,” she said, glancing down at the bed. But Logan was already shaking his head in frustration.

“Just in your mind kid; not your body,” he said again.

“Baby, I could meditate for _days,”_ she argued, but, again, he shook his head.

“But you won’t. I won’t let you. While we’re here, four hour breaks, where you eat, rest, take care of yourself,” he said, moving a hand up her arm, thumb rubbing the arch of her collarbone idly.

“I don’t want to leave you,” she said, before turning away from him, looking at the open door. Logan exhaled frustratingly, turning her head back his way.

“ _Jesu_ s, Marie. How many times do I gotta tell ya? I’m not going anywhere,” he said assuredly. She said nothing, just continued to stare at him with those sad chocolate eyes.

“Listen, darlin’,” he growled. “You built this for us. A place to be. And it’s about the most important thing anyone’s ever done for me. I’ve _cheated death_ because of you. And you’ve given up a lot-- so fuckin’ much--to make it happen. But...now that we have it, you gotta promise me something, kid. You still gotta take care of yourself. Just because we have this now...doesn’t mean you don’t get to sink into yourself anymore than you have. ‘Cause the real world... _Laura..._ they still need you.”

“You don’t think I know that?” Marie asked. He cocked an eyebrow at her, perhaps a little too incredulous. Meanwhile, she kept talking.

“Logan. A week. That’s all I’ve asked for. And yes, I know. Eat, sleep. Got it. And after this week, I’ll be back, working my _ass_ off to revitalize the X-Men. But right now, here, you aren’t going to make me feel bad for this. Because I worked too hard. And I love you too much,” she finished, gripping his hand tightly.

At this, he couldn’t help but smirk, running a thumb once more over her hand.

“Heh. Well. If that’s the case, ok then, baby. _Ok._ Still though, four hours. Get some food, some sleep, and then...well. There’s still a little unfinished business,” he slurred, snaking a hand gently between her thighs. She blushed a little, before bringing her eyes up again to meet his.

“ _Fine._ Ok. And you better deliver,” she teased.

“Darlin’, anything less would be a goddamn Shakespearean tragedy,” he murmured into her ear, before kissing the spot just below, savoring the flavor of her once more.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the beautiful @bluefrogsbestfrogs for helping me edit this very quickly after my goof of posting early!


	3. Trust

**Chapter 3: Trust**

_ New York City, October 2043 _

 

The air was cool and brisk as Laura walked along the sidewalk of Harlem, her stride even and intent. As the mid-morning sun peeked through alleyways and fire escapes, around her, the relentless swirl of noises had begun to swell. A garbage truck squeaking to a halt three blocks up. Pigeons cooing, fighting one another for a moldy piece of bread near a culvert. The rumble of the subway underneath her, steel wheels on metal tracks. The city waking up slowly on this Saturday, and Laura, donned in a leather jacket, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, hoping like hell she was going to pull this one off. 

The little store was in a long strip of businesses on 139th street, most of them, miraculously, still seemingly mom and pop owned. They were shabby, but not neglected, and nestled in between a corner store and a pawn shop was the address Laura was looking for. She doubled back, checked the navigation again on her phone, made sure. But it was obvious, this was it. It was locked and the lights are out, but there it was, plain as day:  _ Dragon’s Lair Uptown Comics.  _  She couldn't help the frown that appeared on her face. She hadn’t known  _ what  _ to expect. If anything, she had been a bit leery. It was incredible that this guy had discovered what they might be up to in Westchester and more so had the balls to contact them, but…this had to be a joke. As she was peering through one the dusty windows among the taped-up posters, she was just able to spot the rows and rows and cramped and crowded comic books and superhero paraphernalia, when she heard a voice from behind her.

“So this is it, hey?” Laura turned to find Dani, a beautiful woman about ten years her senior, hair tightly braided, adorned in a brown sweater.. She was currently clutching two cups of piping hot coffee, looking unimpressed as her dark brown eyes peered at the building with skepticism. 

“I guess,” Laura mumbled, gratefully taking a cup from Dani. “Dear lord, thank you for this. I’ve got jack shit for groceries in that apartment nowadays.” 

The taller woman only smirked at her, before taking a sip of her coffee, running over Laura’s appearance. Laura barely had time to take a shower, let along dry her hair, so now it was windswept and still damp. She had no makeup on to speak of, and her outfit consisted of a pair of spare jeans from her apartment that had seen better days, a shabby Rolling Stones t-shirt, and her token black leather jacket haphazardly thrown over the ensemble.

“Quit looking at me like that,” Laura muttered, as she took a sip of coffee.

“So you  _ did  _ take someone home,” Dani smirked. Laura had said goodnight to Dani the previous night after they had shared a late dinner with Rictor at a local italian joint near Laura’s place, and Dani had known full-well they were both headed to a gay club after Rictor had partially succeeded to get Laura drunk enough that she might actually think it was a good idea. Dani, however, had gone back to her hotel to turn in early.

“So like..since you’re gonna live a super long time, how long is it gonna take to get the party girl out of your system?”

“I wasn’t  _ partying…”  _ Laura muttered. “And how do you know anything?”

“Rictor texted me. Said you actually managed to get yourself drunk and you were hissing spanish into some chick’s ear when you left the club,” Dani was still grinning wickedly.

“The bastard,” Laura moaned, through another swig of coffee, glancing down the empty street for any sign of the third and final member of the newly re-established X-Men. “I hope he has the hangover to end all hangovers.”

“Oh I’m sure he does. He’s usually pretty punctual,” Dani muttered, glancing down at her watch. 

“So what did you do?” Laura asked, desperate to change the subject.

“Laura. I’m thirty two. And engaged. I consider this little jaunt to the city a mini vacation from Derek, which means I had a glass of wine, watched old episodes of  _ Lost _ and fell asleep,” Dani said. Laura let out a laugh, shaking her head slightly. Derek was a recent addition to the X-Mansion, and the only human to inhabit it in what Laura guessed was a long time, even before the Westchester incident. But whereas Alpha Flight had previously given her some grief in Dani’s choice in a suitor, Laura had immediately welcomed Derek when Dani had asked if he could move in with her to the mansion. Dani had been nervous to bring it up with Laura, and Laura quickly quelled her anxiety. For one thing, Laura trusted Derek. She had known him for several years, well enough to know he had kept many pieces of critical knowledge about Alpha Flight to himself. Also, he was a very excellent accountant, and Laura had taken to hiring him full time to oversee the books. And, of course, for another, Laura was hoping for a much more inclusive conception of Xavier’s initial ideology.  _ We’re fighting for mutant-human cohabitation and peace, yes?  _ She had asked Dani. Still though, at Dani’s turning in early, Laura grinned. This new decade had seen a much settled down version of Dani than the one Laura had known as a teenager, and certainly more than the one Logan had known. 

“God, Dani. How the mighty have fallen. You used to go hard all night. Remember when you snuck me into that club in Yellowknife?” 

Dani smirked at the memory, “Oh, I remember. One of the few times I’ve actually seen you drunk for more than like...five minutes. You threw up in a dumpster, but you had to drink like a gallon of vodka to do it. Healing factors must be a bitch if you wanna get wrecked.”

“Tell me about it,” Laura murmured, glancing back at the closed shop through another sip of coffee.

“Logan laid into  _ both  _ of us that night,” Dani smirked. 

“No, you’re wrong about that. That was all Marie. She curses like a fucking sailor when she’s mad,” Laura grinned.

In the years Laura had grown up in Hay River, Dani had kept her promise to have Laura’s back. They had easily formed a friendship, especially by the time Laura had gone to college, all the while Dani busted her ass working as a member of Alpha Flight. She trusted Dani, and Rictor for that matter, with everything. With the exception of Cole back home, Dani and Rictor were the only two people who knew that a version of Logan still existed within Marie’s consciousness.

“So how much do you wanna bet they’re fucking around with us?  _ Kono basho wa hidoi _ ,” Dani muttered in Japanese.  _ This place looks like a shit hole.  _

“ _ Soretomo, tīn'eijā no nureta yume _ ,” Laura muttered back to her.  _ Or a pre-teen’s wet dream.  _ “Why are women in comics always drawn half-ass naked? There’s no way you can gut a man effectively in a fucking bikini.”

Dani smirked. “Don’t know, babe. But I don’t think today’s our lucky day. It seems closed up.”

Laura once more frowned. She had learned, in the few months she had been trying to re-establish Charles's legacy, to keep her expectations very, very low. Everything was taking twice as fucking long as she wanted. Only one wing of the mansion was close to being completely renovated. The basement was still the grave for dozens of unsalvageable computers. A defunct danger room. An empty med lab no one ever wanted to go in. And a flightless plane. That one, of course, stung the worst. 

Laura looked back at the closed store and sighed.  When she had started looking into this guy after he had contacted them, it sounded like, finally, a step forward in the right direction, instead of the two steps back she usually found herself taking. Now, though, she wasn’t so sure.

Then suddenly, the sound of footsteps around the corner. Despite his natural beauty, Rictor appeared, looking, as Laura hoped, thoroughly hungover and miserable.

“Well hello, gorgeous!” Dani smirked at him. His jet black hair was mussed from sleep, and he, too, had donned sunglasses.  

“Why does the sun have to be so fucking  _ bright?”  _ he mumbled. Ignoring his complaints, Dani arched a brow at him. 

“Successful?” Dani asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Rictor muttered. “Give me some of your coffee.”

“Get your own,” Dani whined. 

“Have mine,” Laura said, thrusting the half-downed cappuccino his way. “You need it more than me. Although, you owe me one,  _ hermano _ . Last night was an  _ awful i _ dea.”

“Don’t remind me,” Rictor mumbled, moaning slightly as he clutched his head before staring up at the comic book shop once more.  “So what’s the deal with this place?”

“Does  _ anyone  _ read the goddamn briefs I write up?” Laura muttered.

Rictor rolled his eyes. “Just remind me.”

“Look,  _ I think  _ the comic shop is a front. This guy, and we can’t ID his real name for some reason, just his dozen or so handles and avatars, is some sort of tech wizard. Also obviously a hacker,” Laura was saying.

“A  _ good  _ hacker,” Dani added. “He hacked our phones, which have incredibly advanced protection encryption services on them, thanks to Alpha flight. But as soon as he contacted us, we  _ were  _ able to run him through AF’s system,” Dani was saying scrolling through a file on her phone. “All of his online identities check out. No ties to any human rights organizations. Big in the underground tech market though. But no deals to anyone formidable that we can tell. Just basically nerds selling shit to other nerds.”

“Huh,” Rictor said. “Well, he’s late. What do we do?” Dani frowned, before looking up at the shop.

“Knocking never hurt,” she muttered, striding up to the front door of the darkened shop and pounding on it. 

As soon as she started hollering “Helllloo!! Yoo hoo! The X-Men are hereeee!” Rictor held his face in his hand, exasperated.

“God, we’re amateurs. No way the  _ real _ X-Men ever had to fucking knock,” he grumbled.

“We  _ are  _ the real X-Men. But...no, probably not,” Laura said, through a frown. “ _ Logan probablemente habría derribado la puerta _ .”

“Well you’ve got claws. Why don’t you make yourself useful,  _ hermana _ ?” Rictor asked.

“Great first impression, _ ”  _ Laura shot back. “I’m trying to actually make allies here.  _ Métodos pacíficos _ .”

“Anyone in there?!” Dani was still practically shouting. Laura audibly groaned.

“Let’s get out of here. This has to be a joke,” Rictor was starting to say, before Laura’s nose picked up on a new scent and her ears heard the scuffling of shoes on a linoleum floor.

“Wait,” Laura said, stilling Dani’s hand with her own before she was about to pound on the door once more.

Suddenly, the small mail slot on the door at waist-level opened slightly and somebody mumbled, “P-password?” 

Laura stared down at the door incredulously, before all three looked at each other. “ _ What the fuck?”  _ Rictor mouthed, No one said anything, until the voice on the other side of the mailslot spoke again.

“Password, please,” it said. 

Both of her X-Men were looking to Laura for answers now. She stumbled over her next words, not really sure what to say. Sick of the games, she tried, desperately, to summon up some Wolverine bravado with all her might. 

“Listen, bub. We’re the fucking X-Men. And we weren’t briefed on any goddamn passwords. Let us in,” she growled, while Rictor snickered and Dani mimed a slow clap. Laura turned, snarling at them a bit, before turning back.

“T-the X-men? Like that Wolverine chick I messaged?” the voice spoke again.

“Yeah,” Laura muttered. 

“So. If you are who you say you are,  _ X-Men and all,  _ what happened in issues 141 through 142 of Uncanny X-Men, volume 1?” 

Laura let out a bark of laughter, her anger instantly diminishing. Meanwhile, Dani was biting her lip in panic. “Are we supposed to be fucking experts on our own  _ comics?  _ Fuck. Am  _ I  _ even in these comics?!” Rictor groaned exasperatingly, and Laura once more smirked. 

“Easy. That’s Days of Future Past,” she said with confidence. “But how about you stop it with the goddamn guessing games and let us in. Or I take down the fucking door. We’re not here to waste time,” she threatened.

“Laura, tone it down a notch,” Dani was whispering, but Laura had just unsheathed her claws on her right hand, blood trailing down her arm, as a short man of native descent, maybe in his late twenties at most, opened the door, donned in a  _ Magneto was right   _ t-shirt with a mustard stain on it, hiding behind thick, tortoise shell glasses.

“Holy  _ fuck,” _ the man said.  “You  _ are  _ her.”

The claws were already sheathed and she shot a look to Dani, who simply rolled her eyes at Laura’s grandstanding, as they slowly trailed their way into the dusty and dark comic book shop. Everywhere, stacks and stacks of comic books. Mugs. Figurines. Board games. And then, as she turned to her right, under the  _ New Releases This Week!  _ Shelf, Laura was instantly greeted with her father’s illustrated face, plastered on the cover of a recent issue.  _ Return of Wolverine, issue 5 on shelves now! _

A chill instantly shot down Laura’s spine, and she frowned deeply. There were reasons it had been years since she had read a comic book. 

“Jesus,” Rictor echoed her sentiment.

“Got quite the collection here,” Dani managed to say, trying to maintain a sense of politeness.

“Yeah, well, it’s a hobby,” the man said, running a hand through his hair. His gait was more of a nervous shuffling of his feet than anything, and his eyes flitted between the three mutants currently standing in his shop. Usually this was a telltale sign that he had something to hide, but with one sniff Laura knew it had to be more of a social anxiety thing, than some sort of bluffing.  “But you’re here for the real shit, yeah?” 

_ Bingo,  _ Laura thought to herself. 

“First off,” Laura muttered, glancing once more at her father’s illustrated face, before tearing her eyes off it and shaking off the strange feeling it left her with, “We want to know: how the hell did you find out about us, and why do you care?  Your sources checked out, so that’s why we even agreed to meet you. But...other than the obvious reasons…” she trailed off looking around the comic book shop paraphneilla once more, “why do you want to help us?”

“Uh, well,” he muttered, pushing his glasses back up his face. “I know this looks nuts. But it’s actually kind of personal.”

“Personal?” Laura asked.

“I think I’m one of you.”

Rictor eyebrows shot to his hairline, and Dani shot a skeptical look at Laura.

“A mutant?” Laura clarified. 

“Yeah,” he offered. Laura bit her lip at this, doing the math and obviously it coming up wrong. “You know...mutants our age...there are maybe ten, twenty of us, tops in the  _ entire world _ . You’ve got a few like Dani who fall somewhere in between, but thanks to Canewood, Inc. everyone is either in their sixties or they’re just figuring out they may have some crazy powers right now at the age of twelve or thirteen right now.”

“Which is why we even contacted you,” Dani explained. 

“Listen, I know. It makes sense you wanna start up the school again. And I know about the Canewood/Transigen conspiracy that’s most likely true. You hear that kinda shit on the deep web. But, what I think you don’t get is, I’m some nerdy Cheyenne boy from a Res in Wyoming. Way out in the middle of nowhere. Whatever energy drinks everyone else was guzzling down, we didn’t have that kind of shit where I grew up. So...yeah. Here I am,” he finished. 

“You’re Cheyenne?  _ I’m  _ Cheyenne,” Dani said, interrupting Laura’s next line of questioning. 

“Yeah, I know. You’re Mirage from Alpha Flight. You had your whole own run of comics a few years ago. Actually, uh, I was gonna get to this, but I’d really like your autograph,” he said. Dani only blinked at him, her mouth falling open a little. Laura looked at both of them for a moment, cleared her throat, and changed the subject. 

“Ok. So, Transigen aside _ ,  _ what can you do...exactly...that makes you think you’re a mutant?”

There was a moment of pure silence as the man looked from one of them to the other, before stumbling over his next words.

“I...uh...I’m smart,” he muttered.

“ _ ¿Perdóneme? _ ” Rictor blurted out. The man instantly frowned, running a nervous hand through his hair once more. 

“Uhh. Just...hell. Follow me,” he nodded toward a back door. Both Dani and Rictor looked to Laura for the ultimate decision to follow him, and she nodded once, and they began to trail the man down a narrow set of stairs through another old wooden door. And that’s when Laura almost swallowed her tongue.

“Holy  _ shit,”  _ Dani muttered. Around then, dozens of computers, computers Laura had never seen before. 3D halo projectors, robotics. Then, things Laura didn’t even have words for, several spheres full of light, casting what looked like the aurora borealis onto the low-hanging ceiling, cylindrical objects full of optic wires, something that looked like a motorcycle engine, except that it was glowing purple. 

“So like….you invent things?” Dani clarified.

“I...uh...well. It’s hard to explain. I can visually perceive mechanical energy in action. Like… I can see the potential in any tech device or machine, even before it works,” he finished, looking down at the floor in what seemed to be mild embarrassment.

Surprisingly, it was Rictor who spoke first, finally stepping forward and clapping the man on the shoulder. 

“That’s fucking amazing _ , pana _ ,” he said. Instantly, the shorter man grew redder, stumbling over to a work table adorned with blueprints.

“So here I’ve got some things. Because… it’s true, yeah?” he asked. After shuffling through schematics and drawings, he paused, looking up to Laura with immense hope. “You’ve got her?”

“Got who?” Rictor asked.

“He means the Blackbird,” Laura clarified, stepping over to the stack of papers on the desk. “Yeah, we’ve got her. But she’s a very dead bird corroding in the bowels of a basement whose roof is malfunctioning and won’t even open anymore.”

“Well, I assumed as much,” he said, before finally pulling out remarkably accurate pictures of the Jet. “So....this is what I’ve come up with so far. I’ve been doing research on early 2020’s tech, especially illegal, privatized tech, intersecting it with top-class security clearance aviation craft from that era. I mean, I’m no pilot, but...”

“Cut to the chase,” Laura said, practically salivating over the drawings.  _ This might really work. Holy fuck. It might really work.  _

“Yeah. Yeah, I can help you,” he muttered, looking Laura dead in the eye.

“How much?” Laura asked bluntly.

“I...don’t want money,” he said, looking down once more at the sketches in his hands. “I mean, I literally need unlimited financial access to parts, some of which I’m gonna have to lift off the deep web and the black market, but I’m...I’m not looking for payment. Well, other than…”

“Other than what?” Laura pressed.

“I want to be an X-man,” he said, scuffing his shoe  on the ground. Rictor almost laughed, but Laura shoved him in the ribs. Hard. The man swallowed once more before setting down the drawings and looking at them all deliberately again. It was the first time he seemed sure of what he was saying.

“Look. I know I’m not...like a huge bulked-out dude or anything. But I think you need me. Growing up, my whole life, a kid of color on a reservation, I was  _ already  _ different than most. But I  _ knew  _ I was also different in this...entirely other way. Those comics, man, they saved me. They were a promise. The X-Men...they existed. Wolverine….he was real. They saved people. They changed lives. And they stood for  _ the different _ . You know how many fucking cans I had to recycle to read about your dad back in the day?”

Laura simply stared at him for a moment, before letting out a tired sigh. “Look. I get it. I really do. But...what you’re asking. It’s not like what you read in those comics you’ve got upstairs,” Laura murmured quietly. 

“I know that,” he said.

“The X-Men are family,” Laura said without thinking, and suddenly a memory of a dingy motel room filled her mind, the rain hammering on the window outside, as Logan and Laura flipped through a comic together, his first attempt to show her compassion. He had been trying to point out what was real and and what was fake, settling on images of the blackbird against a bright blue sky. _El Pájaro Negro._ _La Familia._ She swallowed hard and tried to shove down the images, focusing on the man in front of her.

“Listen...what’s your name?” Laura asked. “We couldn’t find it on the database.”

“I...well. The one I use now is….Forge,” he muttered.

“That’s all?” Laura asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Look. I’m going to be real with you, Forge. I’d gladly slice off my limbs and fucking sell them if I could get this jet up and running. It’s the key to  _ everything.  _ So if we choose to trust you, and if you  _ fix it,  _ then, maybe, I’ll consider it. Show us that you mean well, that you  _ want  _ what we want, and...yeah. Ok,” she finished.

“ _ Pero Laura, ni siquiera lo conocemos, _ ” Rictor was whispering quickly in Spanish.

“ _ Cállate, Rictor _ ,” Laura hissed, before turning back to Forge. What Rictor didn't understand was that she was also a girl of color with nothing to cling to but comics and a vague dream that she’d meet the man who might be her father, a superhero, a legend, her  _ familia _ . She was willing, more than willing, to take a chance on someone who once saw the world through the same eyes. “ Do we have a deal?”

Forge finally set down the plans, and, walking with more confidence than she had seen all morning, came up to her and offered her a hand to shake. 

“Deal.”

  
  


\--

The noise was relentless. Jack hammering, sawing, drilling. In and out, day after day. Men with their stomachs bulging over their jeans, all being forced to sign gag orders about the work they were doing here. Only one wing, the faculty wing, which had actually originally belonged to the students, but had been flipped per Marie’s request, was actually finished enough where the few people who resided her could sleep in it. That, and the electricity system that had just been brought online, was the only thing that separated Laura from the various squatters they had asked to vacate the premises several months before. (Marie, as benevolent as she was, had found them all various homeless shelters to go to.)

Laura’s rooms were equipped with an office, bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette, the last of which she rarely used. She also hadn’t been great about unpacking, and there were still dozens of boxes, some of them as old as when she had left for college, littering all the rooms. _1_ _9th Century British Literature. A Couple Russians Thrown In There Too_ , for example, was still unpacked in a corner of her bedroom. She was currently sitting in her office with her various halo projectors she had purchased, head in hands. Most of the noise had subsided, but the unbelievable headache- _where was her fucking healing factor when she needed it-_ was killing her. She finally stood from her desk, turning off the projections, intending to bolster enough bravery to visit the place she rarely dared to go: the basement.

Typically, she had to sneak out in the middle of the night like a teeanger. The biggest set of rooms belonged to Marie directly across the hall, and she knew that with Logan’s hearing the slightest noise almost always woke Marie. Luckily, though, Marie had been gone, and had no knowledge of how poorly Laura was sleeping. Laura smiled slightly, both wary and excited to have Marie back in the morning. Laura hoped Marie’s experiment in Hay River had gone well. She also knew Logan would see to it that her mother took care of herself, and as much as she hoped the mental projection Marie had been so laboriously toiling on would be successful, feelings of jealousy continued to reside in Laura’s mind, which Laura felt immense guilt over. 

Marie had transitioned decently to her life here, although she demanded the immediate remodel of at least the faculty kitchen if she was to stay.  _ I can only stay here if I can cook.  _ It took several weeks and a lot of money, but now Marie had a fully stocked kitchen well in working order. Laura, of course, had benefited from this, as had Derek, Dani, and Rictor. Most nights were filled with wine and good food, even if they were often pouring over blueprints or briefings or schematics. Marie made everyone laugh. She felt like home. And, even from time to time, Logan would pipe in, much to Laura’s desperate yearning. 

Most days, though, had been filled with long talks with contractors, Laura realizing she had endless questions about how long this process was going to take. Also with long, winding conversations with Marie on how the school ought to be run. It made sense, really, that Marie seemed to naturally be taking over the issues and questions focusing on opening up the school, whereas Laura naturally was taking up a leadership position with the X-Men. Still though, since Marie had given in to moving to Westchester, every facet and aspect of the place seemed intimately close to them both, and nothing was to be overlooked. 

Tonight, though, was different. Things were quiet, and Laura easily navigated the darkened mansion to the newly remodeled elevator system that lowered her to the stark, grey hallways of the X-Mansion. Xavier’s secret. His formidable, sometimes necessary approach. Laura knew now most of the infamous X-Men had died here, in this fucking basement. Hank, Jean, Storm. Scott dead in the garage. Kitty, Bobby and Peter in the upstairs hallway. Their bodies had been removed by the goddamn government years and years ago, but one of the first things Laura and Marie did was erect gravestones for all of them a few months ago, including Charles, in the weedy, overgrown courtyard. An ode to her father though, oddly enough, was blatantly missing. It was something she hadn’t asked Marie about, considering the older woman was the one who had ordered the headstones in the first place.  

The hallways were empty now, clean of bloodshed, but much of the relics from eras past remained. Medical supplies that Laura didn't know a clue about. Equipment that befuddled her. Forge was set to make his first visit in the morning, and Laura was nervous. She hoped he lived up to his reputation and he could begin to set things right down here. Moving to the end of the hallway, past Cerebro, intent on the Jet, she oddly stopped, instead staring at the glass cases that still housed the old X-Men uniforms. Hideous, black leather. Her father would sometimes gripe about how insensible it had all been, even if she could never picture him wearing one of these ridiculous get ups,  so divorced from the jeans and flannel man she had known had worn. 

Slowly, she leaned her forehead on the glass partition. She stood there for a moment, her brain trying to will away the constant grief she felt over her father, before sighing through a growl, moving away from the uniforms through the partially wrenched-open steel door. There, sitting in the eerie black silence of the cavernous space, was the jet. She’d made the habit of coming down here sometimes to stare at it, and simply think. For Laura, it had always been a symbol of hope. Of freedom. Her father had lived in this mansion, had wandered these halls, had gone on countless missions on this plane. Something about this last thought though had Laura frowning. In the past, she rarely thought about why she was going to all this trouble, but since her fight with Logan over chess in Hay River, doubt plagued her.  _ Yer a little girl paradin’ around with her daddy’s briefcase and title, thinkin’ that somehow qualifies you to make grown up decisions about things yer only startin’ to understand. This thing, it’s bigger than you.  _

Was that it? Was there a lingering guilt? A sense of dedication to Charles, perhaps, the man she had witnessed stabbed through the chest, dead in the back of a Ford pickup truck? Was it over the guilt of not being able to save him, or perhaps just her father? All those promises. All those stories. Relics, legends, tales of days long past. Maybe she was a fool for wanting to ignite life into a story best left to comic books. Maybe she was simply chasing the past. 

She didn’t know how long she had been down there, but, eventually, Laura craved coffee, and slowly proceeded up the working elevator into the newly renovated faculty kitchen. It was early, but she was surprised to see the dawn light already peeping through the curtains. Yawning, she snagged a mug from a freshly purchased set, but realized the coffee pot was already full. Finally using her senses, she sniffed the air, looked up, and saw her own mother sitting at the kitchen table, completely silent, relaxed and sipping a steaming mug of coffee herself. 

_ “Jesus,  _ mom, Don’t fucking scare me like that,” Laura said, managing to not drop her own mug as she took in the sight of her mother. The older woman was relaxed, forever frozen in her early forties despite her actual age of sixty, hair loosely done up, in a pair of jeans and a hunter green sweater, her favorite color.

“Sorry,  _ hija.  _ I got here about twenty minutes ago, but everyone was asleep. Although I couldn’t hear you, so I figured you were downstairs,” she murmured, moving to stand.

“I didn’t know you were getting back this early, or-” Laura was interrupted as her mother had crossed the length of the kitchen and collected her into a fierce bear hug. 

“I missed you,” she said, before standing back to get a better look at her daughter.

“It’s been like a week, mom,” Laura muttered.

“Yeah, I know,” Marie said. Instantly,  Laura could feel the overwhelming swell of curiosity. Part of her was desperate for information. Marie had traveled to Hay River to have some space, time alone, to try to finally be able to see Logan via mental projection, and Laura had a thousand questions. Had she succeeded? If so, what had he looked like? What had he said? However, trying to maintain with great effort the feeble imitation of an adult, Laura cleared her throat, sitting down and choosing to talk about something else.

“That guy I was telling you about on the phone, Forge,  he’ll be here later today, and I want you to do a walk through of the basement with me before that happens,” she said through a sip of coffee.

“And, on the phone, you said you trusted him to fix the jet?” Marie asked.

“I think...I trust the  _ idea  _ of him. He seems real, and, well, he may very well be one of the few mutants in their twenties disposable to us.”

Marie nodded seriously, before pausing for moment, and then randomly laughing to herself. Laura frowned slightly, and Marie looked a little guilty when she looked back up at Laura.

“Sorry. Logan says you’re good at changing the subject, but not  _ that  _ good. Also, you’re not a great liar,” she said to Laura. 

Laura’s mouth dropped open and then closed shut. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m not lying. This dude is showing up in like three hours-”

“No,  _ no.  _ Not about that,” Marie chuckled again.

“Uh huh,” Laura muttered. “Well...the other thing isn’t really my business is it?  _ Puedo asumir que tuviste éxito.  _ Especially with the way you’re giggling to yourself,” Laura mumbled. Marie only grinned widely once more, but didn’t elaborate. Laura sighed a bit too dramatically and looked up to her mother reluctantly. 

“So?” Laura finally asked.

“So what?” Marie grinned.

“I’m assuming it  _ worked?”  _ Marie simply threw Laura another smile from behind her coffee cup.

“Fuck. It  _ did _ work,” Laura muttered once more. 

“...yep,” Marie replied.

“What the hell was  _ that  _ like?” Laura asked. 

“Hot,” Marie said through a wicked grin. Laura practically spit out her coffee, before shaking her head violent protest. 

“Ugh, Mom! I don’t wanna know- I didn’t mean-”

“You asked!” Marie grinned mischievously.. “Oh god, he’s losing his shit right now. Ha! This is so much fun!” She exclaimed. Laura rolled her eyes, but pressed on.

“I mean...like...you could  _ see  _ each other? Interact with each other?” she asked.

“What do  _ you  _ think?” Marie responded. As the reality of this fact settled in, Laura sat back a bit, lost in thought. There’s no way Laura could conceive in her head the current Logan, whoever he was, and there was no possible way Laura could understand how Marie was doing it. All Laura could really conjure up were old memories of her father, weathered and grey-haired and surly, but ultimately kind and  _ good. What had she called him one of those first nights in Hay River?  _ A good man. 

_ “Daddy?” she had asked. He had stopped, hand on the door frame. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Yeah Laura?” he had said, turning back around. _ _   
_ _   
_ __ “Eres un buen hombre bajo todo,” she said quietly. A tired, wary look in the man’s eyes. This man who was her father. 

_ “Thanks, kid,” he said simply, before quietly closing the door behind him. _

Another searing pain of jealousy clawed at Laura as she tried to instantly stifle the memory, forcing herself to look at Marie once more.

“Hell. So...you saw dad?’

“Yeah.”

“Did he...was he ok?” she finally managed to ask.

“Well, he was more or less himself. Although for some reason he looks younger.”

“Younger?” Laura was asking, but her mother was talking to herself under her breath once more.

“That’s  _ not  _ my fault,” Marie hissed to Logan out loud. “You have practically complete autonomy over yourself in here. I can’t change anything about you.” 

Laura simply blinked at her before clearing her throat.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry,” Marie looked up to Laura once more, this time blushing. “I really did start falling into the habit of using my real voice to talk to him in the past few years. I know it makes me sound crazy, but...well...what can you do?” she asked through a offhand smile.

Laura returned the smirk through a slight shrug of her shoulders.

“You know I don’t care. It helps me… feel like he’s there. So, how  _ is  _ papa? I mean…. what does he think about it all? The mental projection stuff?” 

Marie bit her lip for a moment, obviously waiting for the presence in her mind to share, if he even felt like sharing. Laura still grappled often with whether or not the essence in Marie’s head was really her father. She wouldn’t have called herself a religious person, even though she often prayed, and even though, deep down, she figured they all probably did have souls. She hadn’t really been able to figure out if what Marie had inside her was simply an imprint of the man, like a mimicking shadow, or the real thing. She had always had a spiteful doubt about it being the latter, but after Marie’s move to Westchester, Laura had tried to be more open-minded. 

“He’s...fine. But he’s worried about me, and especially worried about you. About  _ us.  _ He doesn’t want to steal me away too much. Take me out of reality all too often,” Marie said quietly.

Laura considered this for a moment. It made sense, it would be anyone’s natural inclination if they loved and cared about Marie’s well-being, but something about it suddenly made Laura feel guilty. If anything, no matter what incarnation of Logan may be in Marie’s head, considering it had been over ten years they had gone without seeing each other, they should be spending  _ all  _ their time together. Guilt, and, of course, ironically the same ache of jealousy still coursed through Laura though, but the younger woman managed to swallow her pride and continue on.

“Hrmmph. Well, tell him to lay off. You deserve a fucking break,” she said through a sigh, taking a sip of cold coffee, frowning a little, and setting it back down on the table. “So...it can happen whenever, wherever?” she asked curiously,

“As long as I have enough privacy to meditate, without being interrupted,” Marie explained.

“Jesus. That’s amazing. Well, I’m really happy for you, mom,” she said, but something in her voice, something beyond Laura’s control, slipped just slightly, and the veracity of her comment teetered. Marie instantly frowned, picking up on it. Quietly, she took a hand and grasped Laura’s own. 

“Hey,” Marie murmured, squeezing Laura’s hand gently. Laura could only look up, trying to hold it together, trying desperately to understand, and knowing that she never would.

“What?” she managed to mumble.

“Your father says he’d do just about anything to be able to talk to you like that again. Use his voice to tell you everything’s going to be alright.”

Laura couldn’t stop the single tear that fell down her face, but, when she felt it, she too forcibly yanked her hand away to wipe it off. 

“ _ Goddamnit _ . Uh, yeah. Me too,” she finally muttered through a sniffle. 

“Listen. He means it. His voice. A hand on your shoulder. A hug. Something. Anything,” Marie muttered and, despite herself, Laura let out a tearful, small laugh. 

“Wow, dad,” she said quietly. “You’re the fucking  _ Wolverine _ . Living in Marie’s head’s made you a total softie,” she added through a small smile, and Marie genuinely laughed at this.

“You  _ may _ have a point. Although, hey! I’m still pretty goddamn tough,” Marie said through a smile and playful punch of Laura’s arm, effectively calling a truce. Laura grinned back, rubbing the spot where Marie had socked her, and then stood, offering to refill Marie’s empty mug. The older woman merely nodded, and Laura walked it into the kitchen, her mother all the while watching her. 

“Oh, and speaking of papa,” Laura added, quickly wiping one more tear away before turning back to her mother, “He’s got a fan.”

“Oh yeah?” Marie asked through a coy smile. She was still sitting comfortably at the dining room table, and Laura noticed it was probably the most comfortable she seemed in the two months she had been there. 

“This Forge dude? He’s  _ obsessed  _ with the comics,  _ especially  _ with dad. I think the only reason he saw us was because he had evidence to believe I was Wolverine’s daughter. I mean, I had to show him my claws to let us in the shop.”

At this, Marie raised her eyebrows in vague surprise as Laura refilled both coffee mugs.

“Jesus. I didn’t know anyone cared anymore,” she said incredulously. 

“Well considering how many people are starting to hate us again, we could use a few fanboys in our corner,” Laura murmured bitterly, before walking back in Marie’s direction.

“And he’s willing to do the work? How much is he asking for?” Marie asked, taking the freshly refilled cup of coffee with a nod of gratitude. 

“That’s just it,” Laura muttered, before sipping deeply. “It’s  _ that  _ nuts. As long as I supply whatever whoozit or whatzit in terms of parts, it’s  _ pro bono.  _ Except that he wants to become an X-Man,” Laura added unenthusiastically.

“Oh...dear. That’s...new,” she muttered into her mug.

“I didn’t know what to tell him. On one hand, we do need people, we need  _ real firepower _ , but, like, people we can  _ trust _ . Also, I wasn’t sure...what are the credentials? Like...did you have to pass some sort of danger room test back in the day or something?” Marie smiled a little at this.

“Not...really? I certainly didn’t. But I also went to school there. But, uh, wait...” she went silent for a couple of seconds, before starting to speak again.  

“Logan says you’re pretty much right. Trust is an elemental factor, and it takes time to build it. But… just because you don’t trust someone now, even another mutant, simply because you don’t know them yet, isn’t a good enough reason to turn them away. There were plenty of mutants that didn’t take classes at the school and came to it later, himself included,” Marie said through a small smile.

“Huh. I guess he’s right,” Laura fiddled with the handle of her mug in contemplation. Marie nodded. 

“He says it’s good you’re giving this guy a chance. We don’t have the option to be picky right now, especially if he’s genuine. And you’ve already gotten a good enough whiff of him to know he isn’t lying or you wouldn’t ever have revealed the mansion’s address. We also could benefit from having him around, especially if it means we can amp up our surveillance and get the jet running. And….well… he says.. _.oh sugar, _ ” Marie trailed off, before looking up to Laura apologetically. “Uh, sorry...he’s insisting I repeat, ‘Charles always gave people a chance, even on me, even when he probably shouldn’t have.’” At this, both women frowned, as Marie but her lip slightly, before speaking once more.

“Obviously, I don’t quite agree with him on that last point. Charles  _ certainly  _ should have, and Logan’s forgetting he saved the entirely of mutant existence with the jump, all because Charles took that chance,” Marie said, before waiting a beat and adding under her breath, “ _ Sorry, baby, but it’s true,”  _ to Logan and Logan alone. 

Laura frowned for a moment, her memories once more pulled back to those few days with both Logan and Charles, before muttering, “Yeah. I guess you both have a point. And that’s what I told him, more or less.”

There was a long pause in the conversation, before Laura felt her mother take her hand in her own across the table once more. 

“Laura?” she asked simply.

“Yeah?” Laura said back.

“Have you been sleeping?” she asked. Laura only blinked at her, trying to come up with the best way to lie. Marie seemed to read this indecision on her, and responded.

“Let me rephrase that so you don’t have to lie and I don’t have to pretend I’m not aware you’re lying. You’re tired. You’re not sleeping. What can I do to help?”

“I’m fine, mom,” she responded quickly. “Remember, personal life? Nonexistent until this shit show’s up and running.”

“Self-care’s important too…” Marie tried to interject.

“You’ve been reading too many inspirational memes. I’m fine. I just… I get lost in my head sometimes. I wander to come back to it,” Laura mumbled, even as Marie continued to stare at Laura evenly. 

“Anyway, how about you? Are you still ok, being here?” Laura asked, once again changing the subject.

Marie sighed. “It’s been...bearable. Mainly because we’re all so busy,” she murmured, but Laura noticed she stood abruptly, intent on the kitchen once more.  “But yes...it’s strange. I think the more things are renovated, the easier it might be.”

“If that ever happens,” Laura mumbled, watching Marie seize a carton of eggs from the fridge and snap on the gas stove.

“It’s a mansion. It takes time. Now, I’m making you an omelet and you’re going to eat it,  _ hija _ .”

“Mom, I’m not hungr-” Laura began.

“Don’t you dare fucking protest. Also, there’s a decent bottle of whiskey in the top left cabinet. Logan wants you to spike the coffee. He says he needs a drink if he’s going down in that ‘fucking basement’ today. And if he does, you certainly do.”

“It’s nine in the morning,” Laura muttered, but still obligingly moved to the kitchen once more.

“No time like the present,” Marie smirked, effortlessly cracking the smooth surface of an egg on the rim of a mixing bowl with one hand, tossing the shell aside.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the tremendous delay on getting this story up and running. Writing has become a little harder for me since life is busier, but I promise to finish both my WIPs. <3 Thanks to the lovely @bluefrogsbestfrogs for the beta edit, despite the fact she is incredibly busy right now.


	4. Distance

**Chapter 4: Distance**

**_Westchester, October 2043_ **

There were countless moments in Logan’s life when he had squandered opportunity. When he had been ungrateful. Vengeful. Mean. Or, in other words, a real son of a bitch. He’d killed thousands of people, most of whom deserved it, some, of course, who didn’t. He’d killed for Weapon X as little more than a monstrous animal. And when he’d regained control over his own mind again and had escaped, even when he had found the X-Men, he’d been selfish, distant, brooding. He driven off on his Harley and left Rogue alone at the mansion more times than he could count-  _ god why had he not spent every second with her?- _ and when he’d come back with a sweating six pack of Molson in the midday sun, it was a flimsy peace offering. He’d left for good a year or so after he had ended Jean’s life, and he’d fled to Canada. He hadn’t come back until years later. 

There were many things he regretted. Not being able to protect the Rogue he had known before the jump. Not being able to protect her after it, either. He regretted finding Laura only after the time she had spent living a fear-filled, parentless existence in a fucking lab. He regretted Caliban and Scott and Charles. He regretted all the people he couldn’t save. All the people whose lives he had helped end because he hadn’t been quick enough, smart enough, strong enough.

But right now, the thing he regretted most, what plagued whatever was left of his goddamn soul, was not being able to hold his fucking daughter in his arms and tell her she was doing a damn fine job and that all this shit would work itself out.

He’d spent almost the entirety of a week feeling like he had gained what he had lost: a goddamn body. The sensations of being alive, the feel of a touch on his skin, the way he could lean in to someone, how he could whisper, or laugh, or fucking  _ feel,  _ Marie had provided him the illusion of all of that inside her own mind. But that’s all it was. A very realistic illusion. And while he typically possessed a certain kind of mental stamina for living so long as a spectator, the new sensations of having a self again had undone much of the discipline it had taken fucking years to instill in himself.  He hadn’t realized it, entirely, until the very moment his daughter appeared in the kitchen, looking fucking exhausted and stressed as ever. For a cruel, unending moment, he had almost tried to reach for her, had almost willed the body he no longer had up out of the chair to go to her, until, of course, he realized he couldn’t. He had let out a low, mental growl to himself, and he knew Marie realized what was going on almost instantly. They had talked about this, a little, their last night in Hay River. How it would feel going back. But this was fucking awful.

“Jesus. That’s amazing. Well, I’m really happy for you, mom,” Laura was saying through near tears.

_ God, I just wanna fucking talk to her. As myself,  _ he growled inside Marie’s mind.

_ I know, sugar,  _ she tried to reassure him.

_ I fucking miss her. She’s so goddamn far away. _

_ I know.  _

“Hey,” Marie was murmuring, squeezing Laura’s hand gently. Logan could feel the touch of his daughter’s skin through Marie, but it was ghostly in comparison to what he had felt in the cabin or what he had felt when he was actually alive. It felt cold, distant, like a call on a payphone that was breaking up. He could see and hear her better, he always had, and what he saw was Laura trying to hold it together, and something about that made it all the worse.

_ Marie, tell her. Tell her I’d do just about anything to talk to her as myself again.  _

“Your father says he’d do just about anything to be able to talk to you like that again. Use his voice to tell you everything’s going to be alright.”

Meanwhile, Logan watched helplessly as a single tear fell down Laura’s face, he powerless to stop it.

“ _ Goddamnit _ . Uh, yeah. Me too,” Laura was muttering.

_ Fuck. Marie. Tell her. Just a hand on her shoulder. A hug. Something.  _

“Listen,” Marie was saying. “He means it. His voice. A hand on your shoulder. A hug. Something. Anything.”

“Wow, Dad,” Laura replied, and Logan realized it was one of the rare, rare moments Laura was addressing him directly, without pitching the “Tell dad I said” in front of it. “You’re the fucking  _ Wolverine _ . Living in Marie’s head’s made you a total softie,” she added through a tearful laugh.

Despite the heartache he felt, he couldn’t help but mentally chuckle. Of course. Of course, in the few times she talked to him directly, she’d give his ass a hard time. 

_ Kid has some fucking sass,  _ he told Marie.

_ Wonder where she gets it from?  _ Marie quickly zinged him, before continuing her conversation with their daughter. Logan was quiet for a bit, dejectedly resigned to watching Marie talk to Laura as they poured themselves second cups of coffee and they talked about Forge and the nature of trust. Logan was only half-listening though, carefully inventorying Laura from his place in Marie’s mind. It was obvious she hadn’t been sleeping. With a healthy healing factor he knew firsthand that you could go a few days without it, but you always paid for it in the end. 

_ Ask her why she ain’t sleeping,  _ he finally piped in, interrupting the conversation between the two women.

“I’m fine, mom,” she responded quickly. “Remember, personal life? Nonexistent until this shit show’s up and running.”

_ She looks hungry too.  _

_ I’m already on it,  _ Marie piped up, moving to the kitchen to fetch the eggs. 

_ There’s a bottle of decent whiskey in the cabinet. If Laura wants us down in that fucking basement today, tell her to spike yer coffee. _

_ It’s nine in the morning,  _ Marie mentally chastised him.

_ No time like the present,  _ he quipped, and he was pleased to see Marie fling the same retort at Laura a couple of seconds later. 

  
  


\--

The worst part was that nothing had been touched in twenty years. Those last few chaotic moments at the X-Mansion in which Logan believed Marie to be dead and witnessed the deaths of people so close to him they were family still haunted the mansion, along with the subsequent storming of the house by federal agents. Of course, Logan hadn’t been around for that. Realizing Charles was still alive, he had fled, and he hadn’t looked back. Many things, disturbingly, had been left in the same place they had been left in since that fateful afternoon, even if the Westchester incident had mostly faded from public memory. 

That first trip downstairs had been horrible. Laura had cleaned up as much as she could, but there were still terrible and raw reminders of a life ripped away from both Logan and Marie everywhere. Mementos and signatures of the people Logan and Marie had deeply cared for, that Laura couldn’t have possibly known about.  In the lab, old vials of medicine meant to inhibit Charles’ seizures. Open lab notes on Hank’s desk. Jean’s specimens still in the centrifuge.

Little by little, things had been tidied. They always did it together, Marie and Laura. Papers and materials boxed up and carefully labeled. While the remodel went on and on, Marie, Laura and by proxy Logan had cleared house, keeping what they could live with, and discarding what they couldn’t. 

Eventually, too, Marie finally had made her way back to their old rooms they had shared in their years at Westchester. Everything, once more, was in the same place, and Logan had tried to blanket as much of Marie with the warmth of his consciousness as he could. Stacks of books still on the floor from where Marie was preparing to pack them. Origami birds. A record still in the player, caked in dust. The things they had left behind. The things they had done without.

The second time she'd visited their old home, Marie had taken a small cardboard box and collected the things she felt she could not part with. Logan, too, had made small requests.  _ It’d be a damn near travesty to leave that Dylan album. Good thing about vinyl. It can sit here twenty years, and it lasts.  _ Marie, then, had said her goodbyes to the room, and was all the more grateful that Laura had moved the faculty suites to the other wing of the mansion. It was the promise, hopefully, that they could start anew. That they could, in a quiet way, begin again.

The basement though, couldn’t be helped. And it could no longer be ignored. 

Laura was currently writing notes on a portable halo projector later that morning as they took another inventory. Logan noticed that his daughter seemed especially inside herself, and unfortunately the spiked coffee had done none of them any real good. Laura seemed overwhelmed, inundated with doubt, and as Logan watched the two women make their way down the desolate corridor, he was unsure how to best offer advice or help. 

During the past week spent in the cabin with Marie, when she was “sleeping” or otherwise busy, Logan had sat down at the little desk in the living room and had started writing notes. Handwritten notes about important things he needed to remember, things he wanted to tell Laura. Of course, the paper, the pen, the desk, his hands, even, all resided only within Marie’s mind, but it felt good to write again, even if it was an illusion. Oddly enough, Marie seemed to remember what he wrote down better, as if by manifesting his ideas in her consciousness. And afterward, she would stay up and read what he wrote, comment on it and ask for clarification or elaboration.  _ How much do we need to spend on surveillance and security? What’s the best avenue for acquiring stolen or illegal parts for the war room tech?  _

Still though, Logan wasn’t a goddamn genius, and even at the height of his time as a former X-Men, he had only been a part of the whole. It was obvious, that at some point, they would need more help.

_ Fuck. I miss that old blue fur ball sometimes,  _ Logan admitted within Marie’s mind as Marie and Laura strode down the hall, past the medbay and lab. 

_ He was a genius,  _ Marie added solemnly.

_ So what do we do? Post an ad? “In need of mutant scientific genius?”  _ Logan quipped.

Marie let out a sad laugh, and Laura looked up to her mother at her reaction.

"Sorry,  _ hija,”  _ she replied. “We were just reminiscing about Hank.” 

Laura frowned a little, muting her halo projector on her wrist and shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. 

“We could really use a mind like his. Like….with the danger room. I don’t even know where to start. I know you said Hank designed it, but the plans have been lost. The tech at the time was extraordinary, but I’m not sure how to recreate anything close to that without a lot of goddamn help. Jesus, I hope Forge has an idea of how to do it,” Laura muttered.

_ Tell her you don’t need that fancy ass danger room yet. Get the gym renovated, that’ll be enough. She needs to expend some energy, anyway. Same with Rictor and Dani.  _

“Your dad says the gym is a good enough of a place to start, if you wanna train” Marie suggested.

“Huh,” Laura said through a grin. “Just to prove I can kick your ass in sparring some more?”

Marie scoffed at this. “ _ Excuse me,  _ but I’m an  _ excellent  _ sparer.  _ Especially  _ for my age.”

_ Damn straight, baby,  _ Logan added, and he could practically feel Marie’s satisfied grin.

 

\--

The kid wasn’t much to look at. He obviously had never trained a day in his life. Logan hadn’t made any specific mental quips, but he viewed the boy with a certain skepticism, which some-fucking-how Marie could still intuit off Logan.

_ Give him a chance,  _ Marie argued.

_ What the fuck is up with his shirt?  _

_ Apparently it’s a thing. Like a pop culture thing.  _

_ “Magneto was right?” That sick Lensherr bastard fucking tried to rip the metal out of my body. He hurled me into the goddamn Potomac. I almost fucking drowned. That shit ain’t “right.”  _

_ He’s a kid, don’t hold it against him. _

“You’re...you’re Rogue,” Forge was saying nervously, holding out a shaky hand to Marie through a shy smile. Logan could feel Marie return it as she surveyed the younger man, and offered a “Yeah, I am.” They were all standing in the foyer of the mansion a couple of hours later, and it was obvious this kid was enamored by the sight of it, despite the obvious remodel-in-process. Logan would have guessed the kid was 21, 22 tops, which was miraculous, because he’d been under the impression only the Transigen bunch had managed to survive during the “dark era,” which is what Marie and Laura had taken to calling the time period between the shuttering of Xavier’s doors until about twelve or thirteen years ago, when the last of Canewood, Inc. had been disassembled. 

_ I kinda like him,  _ Marie quickly added to Logan

_ Hrmph. Little young to be an X-Man,  _ Logan mentally grumbled. 

_ No younger than I was,  _ Marie retorted.

“I just… ma’am….you’re a legend,” Forge was saying. “I have so many questions for you. Like…you  _ knew  _ them. You  _ knew them all.  _ Even Wolverine, yeah?” he was asking. 

Logan caught Laura shooting Marie a look, but Logan only felt Marie shrug her shoulders in return. 

_ Best be honest,  _ Marie said to Logan, before telling Forge, “Uh, yeah. Later in life, I was Logan’s partner. I’m also Laura’s adoptive mother.”

Forge only blinked in shock at Marie for a moment.

“That...jesus. That’s not how it happens in the comics,” he muttered.

“Oh, I know,” Marie grinned. “But we’re the real deal around here,” she was saying, just as Laura loudly cleared her throat.

“Oh, sorry, Laura,” Forge was stammering, looking back to the younger mutant. “Wanna get on with it?”

“Follow me,” Laura smiled, and started to walk them all back into the basement they had surveyed earlier in the day.

“So, Forge,” Marie was saying, “ Laura tells us you might be able to help with some of the technology in this place. That your mutant abilities help you, see the way machines work?” Forge was already nodding, doubling his pace along to keep up with both the women’s quick stride. 

“Uh yeah. I mean it’ll still be a hell of a lot of work and it’s gonna probably take some time from what Laura was describing, but I haven’t come across a computer yet I couldn’t fix or make better… not to brag or anything. It’s just how it is with me, ma’am,” Forge was muttering.

Logan could feel Marie smile. “Please, call me Marie. We try to hold on like hell to our humanity around here,” she said, throwing a smirk to Laura, who returned it through a gentle roll of the eyes, and Logan knew in that moment Laura was thinking what he was thinking. Marie was falling for this kid.

_ You don’t need to mother everyone, darlin’. He ain’t yer responsibility.  _

_ He’s alone. He wants to be a part of a family. _

_ Lot of kids out there that ain’t got family. _

_ And isn’t that our responsibility? To protect and house all these mutant kids whose families won’t accept them? _

Logan thought about this, and finally decided to bite his proverbial tongue. She had a point.

_ Uh huh. I thought so,  _ Marie teased.

As they descended down the elevator, Logan noticed that Laura had for the most part stayed quiet. She seemed slightly uneasy, still tired, like there was a heavy, invisible weight on her shoulders. Logan  _ did  _ probably give a shit about the kids this mansion may one day house, but there was only one he’d give everything to, even if she was a grown-ass woman now, capable of taking care of herself. Although, he was startin’ to see she wasn’t doing a very good job of it. 

_ Fuck. Like father like daughter. _

_ What?  _ Marie asked.

_ Shit. Did I project that to you? Pay no mind.  _

_ You’re gonna explain yourself later,  _ Marie warned before continuing her conversation with Forge.

“It would honestly be my dream,” the younger mutant was saying. “This place… as a kid growing up. I had no idea it was  _ real,”  _ he muttered, just as the elevator door opened. He fell quiet for a moment, looking both ways down the long, sprawling halls.

“Holy  _ fuck,”  _ Forge said, stumbling forward, as if magnetically drawn toward the tech. 

“Well,” Logan listened to Marie as she stared at the younger mutant, “now you know it is. Everything’s a little rusty and outdated though.” 

“The war room is the first door on the right,” Laura was saying, but Forge had already marched forward, entering through the wrenched-open door. Inside, an abandoned conference table, surrounded by old computers and equipment. Logan watched as the kid ran his hands over one of the dusty consoles, treating the heap of junk like a prized, coveted possession, and for some reason Logan instantly had more respect for the kid.

Then, the younger mutant pulled a rectangular looking device out of his pocket, spoke to it, and it instantly projected several halo screens at once, responding, “How can I help you today, Mr. Forge?”

“Hell,” Marie muttered. “Impressive.”

“Really?” he asked. “Heh. My own invention. My latest journey into AI. Although I’ve got a long way to go...So, uh, anyway. This room obviously needs all new computers, or the ones that exist need substantial upgrades. It’ll be integral to the security.”

_ Press him on that,  _ Logan interjected.  _ What are his plans? _

“Tells us more,” Marie piped up, and Logan was sure not to miss the side glance from Laura to Marie, a signature move when Laura suspected Logan was doing the directing. 

“I think...if you give me enough time, I can work with sustainable energy to create visibility  shields around the house, “ Forge was saying. “Also maybe infusing the perimeter with interdimensional energy so that if anyone gets close, the field would turn them around and make them walk in the wrong direction.”

“Holy  _ fuck _ ,” it was Laura’s turn to say. 

_ Ok,  _ Logan added.  _ Maybe I jumped the gun a bit on this runt. He might actually be able to help us with this shit. _

Laura was smiling ear to ear, and Logan watched with amusement as she added, “Hey Forge. You wanna see the jet?”

“Hell, yes,” he said, looking up from the notes he had been dictating to the computer lady in his wrist. 

They made their way through the partially open door that no longer operated- “an easy fix” Forge added- and the younger man seemed to take in a deep breath as he stared up at the long-since-grounded black bird. Its expansive, looming wings, it’s long tipped nose, it’s darkened windows, eerily black in the darkness. 

“Hell,” he cursed. “There she is.”

Logan sighed within Marie’s mind.

_ He’s gonna get that thing to fly, _ Logan murmured to Marie.

_ You really think so?  _ she asked.

_ Fuck yes. Look at him. He’s got fucking stars in his eyes. _

_ Why don’t you sound excited about that? Laura’s wanted this for years. _

_ Fucking plane made me sick as shit,  _ Logan added.

_ More like scared as shit,  _ Marie retorted.

_ Shush your mouth if you know what’s good for you, woman,  _ Logan threatened, and he heard the moment when Marie outwardly giggled and then muttered  a “sorry” to Forge and Laura, who had paused their current discussion of specifics concerning the plane to state at her, before shrugging it off and turning back to talk shop. 

_ Or what?  _ She teased, and Logan had realized everyone’s mood had lifted from this morning. Something about the kid’s optimism, or maybe how he looked at them all like goddamn saviors, was somehow oddly validating. He also had them all thinking that, perhaps, they could pull this extraordinary stunt off.  

_ You really wanna know?  _

_ Do tell,  _ Marie pressed.

_ Ya know when I had you up on the desk two nights ago? I was fuckin’ ya hard and quick, and sometimes I just couldn’t help but smack that fantastic ass of yers?  _

Logan could feel a mixture of arousal and bashfulness blooming within his woman, and he fucking prided himself on it.

_ Fuck yes, _ she mentally whispered to him _. I felt like my actual body was sore from that one. But God... _

_ That’ll look like a fucking stroll in the park after I’m done with you,  _ Logan playfully growled, and again, Marie giggled out loud. This time, Laura frowned as she looked up to her mother with concern.

“Uhhh, sorry,” Marie apologized again, and he could feel the warmth of embarrassment in Marie’s cheeks as Logan chuckled in amusement. Marie noticed a very confused Forge and changed the subject. “Forge. Do you have a place to stay?’ she asked.

“Well, I sublet my place in New York, and got an Airbnb in Bedford Hills,” he was saying, but Marie was already shaking her head.

“Why don’t you stay here? For as hard as you’ll be working, I think it might be easier. Also...you look like you could use a decent meal. Room and board on the house.” 

“Marie is a fucking amazing cook,” Laura was saying.

“Well uh… I don’t wanna impose,” Forge argued.

“Nor at all. There are still five fully furnished suites that have been renovated but no one’s living in in the faculty wing. You’d be doing us a favor,” Marie added. Laura was smiling, as she was realizing what they all were realizing. Forge was to be trusted. And Forge could one day make, in his own way, an excellent X-Man.

“Alright then,” he muttered, and that was that.

  
  
  


_ \-- _

Roast chicken that had been cooking in the oven for hours alongside lemon and onion and garlic and carrots. Warm pads of butter melting onto thick, fluffy mashed potatoes, drizzled in a gravy of pan drippings seasoned with white wine. Grilled artichokes, accompanied with garlic butter to dip them in. It was a meal of comfort, a meal that gravitated people toward each other, and the laughter was loud and the conversation rich as the few mutants who inhabited the mansion sat around the dining room table.

Marie had been cooking all afternoon after her conversation in the basement with Forge. Logan considered it a signature of hers, of sorts, a way to show the younger kid that she meant what she had offered, a way to include him, to show all the younger people who now inhabited this space that they were wanted, welcome.  _ Family.  _ And now, as the meal wore on, as the third bottle of Pinot Noir had been poured, everything ebbed and flowed. Logan could feel the day’s exhaustion bite at Marie, especially as dinner was quietening. When Marie drank, everything in her head felt loose, warm, to the point where Logan wasn’t sure where he started and she ended. He never felt necessarily  _ drunk,  _ but everything became precarious, unsure, and it was a feeling he somehow both trusted and didn’t.

Tonight though, he was jealous. Not only about the food, but because of what was happening around the table. The sun had completely left the late autumn sky, but the lights of the kitchen shrouded the rest of them in a safe, harmonic glow. He longed to be there, in that room, feeling that warmth and experiencing the company of the others. Derek and Forge had been talking numbers all afternoon, but had come in for dinner, and now Rictor and Dani were jovially quizzing Forge on X-Men facts. The only one that seemed to be a bit more quiet was Laura, who was smiling but interjecting less frequently. Marie had noticed, and had murmured an, “You alright  _ amada?” _

“Yeah, just tired,” she had muttered, hugging her thin arms to her body, sighing, before she shook it off and moved to clear some plates.

“Let me help you with that,” Marie moved to stand.

“Hell, no. Rictor, you’re on dish duty with me.  _ Y los estamos haciendo a mano. _ Marie does no more work tonight, you understand?” she shot the other mutant serious threatened look.

“ _ Si, mi capitán,”  _ he tipsily said, giving Marie a true and tried salute before picking up his own plate.

Logan had felt Marie frown slightly, but savored the feeling when Marie walked over to give Laura a hug.

“I  _ am  _ a little tired,” Marie murmured.

Laura smiled a bit as she moved to pick up Marie’s empty wine glass, grabbing the bottle of wine and topping it off for her.

“Go unwind, Mom. I can show Forge to a room,” Laura said, and Marie smiled appreciatively as she accepted the glass from Laura.

_ Tell Laura she did good today,  _ Logan muttered.

“Your dad says that you did good today,  _ hija,”  _ Marie said. Laura’s eyebrows raised slightly, but still she smiled.

“I didn’t really  _ do _ anything but answer a call,” she said. “But, uh, thanks,  _ Papá.  _ You know, I think we really have something here,” Laura said so quietly the other four drunkenly swapping war stories couldn’t hear. “Tell dad I hope he remembers how to fly the fucking Blackbird.”

Marie laughed through a sip of wine. “No. He doesn’t know how. You know he hates flying. But I know. Or, at least, I could sift through some memories and try to remember,” Marie grinned.

Laura smiled again. “Maybe we can do what  _ Papá _ said tomorrow. You know, pull out some of those old fightclub mats and do a little training. Maybe spar?”

“Ha! Maybe. Your father’s exercise regime already has me more sore than I can imagine. And he’s a goddamn drill sergeant.”

“Go easy on her,  _ Papá _ ,” Laura smiled, and Logan noted, for the third fucking time in one day, Laura had addressed him directly. And something in his goddamn soul ached. “And get some rest, Mom. I’ll finish up here,”

“Alright, alright,” Marie said through a yawn and a final moment where she brushed a strand of Laura’s hair out of her face. “I’ll scoot.”

  
  


\--   
  


Marie’s room wasn’t anything decadent. Most things were utilitarian, more bare than the cabin she had created in her mind. Of course, she had shipped all of her books from Hay River, and, to no one’s surprise, her art supplies sat on a large oak desk, where often Marie would draw at night if they weren’t reading. Logan loved watching Marie draw in real life, because her thoughts were disparate and interesting-  _ a line here? No, no. Change it. Make the curve cleaner, like water-  _ and, of course, Marie had her records, many of them pilfered from the rooms she and logan had once shared. The similarities between the two spaces, though, stopped there, and they had both felt like that was for the best. 

Marie sighed as she entered the darkened bedroom, flicking on a lamp light and setting down her still mostly-full wine glass on a small runner table near the door. Instantly she was kicking of her shoes, a ritual Logan had been fully aware off  _ before  _ he died, and he savored the way she felt more relaxed after. She settled onto the love seat in the small living area, feet kicked up on the coffee table, wine glass forgotten, and Logan realized what she was up to. 

_ Kid,  _ Logan muttered

_ I want to be with you,  _ she murmured

_ You need to sleep,  _ Logan mumbled.

_ After. I haven’t seen you all day. It’s so different than home was.  _

_ It’s gonna be. And that’s a good thing. Remember, they all need you. _

_ But  _ I  _ need  _ you, Marie said simply.

Logan said nothing for a moment, mulling over the little to no options he truly had. She would never place them there without both of their consent, but still, to Marie, he was powerless. 

_ Please,  _ she said.

_ Goddamnit baby. Alright then,   _ he mentally muttered, and already the landscape in Marie’s mind was changing. She was breathing steady, like she had practiced, and it practically felt someone was pulling him by a string attached to an ankle, because the earth, the cabin, the clearing around it began rising up around him, and suddenly it was twilight and summer and warm again in the cabin, and she was there, and they were in there bed, lying down.

“Hell kid. You did that quick. Gotta be an all-time record,” he muttered, breathing out, lifting one thumb to brush her lips.

And just like that, as her chocolate brown eyes looked at him intently, she burst into tears. Surprise coursed through him, and he muttered a “Whoa, darlin’. C’mere,” as he was already grabbing her fiercely, pulling her close. He ran a hand over her back as she was clutching the red flannel of his shirt, and he was then kissing her forehead between murmurs and gentle growls, trying to get her to calm down.

It took a while, and when she finally could speak, she muttered a “I’m...I’m sorry.”

“What’s wrong, Marie?” he asked, sitting up in bed a little, as she brushed the scruff of his jawline.

“It’s… just been a long day,” she whispered, wiping her eyes with a spare hand. 

“You need to sleep, darlin’. For real,” he muttered. 

“No,” she said through a shake of the head. Logan had been a little thrown by her emotions, but now that he was walking back through the memories of the day, he could guess where this was coming from. In Hay River, at the edge of the world, it was easy to sink into this place. To pretend, perhaps, that they never had lost each other. That his body actually wasn’t buried in the backyard at the edge of the Lakehouse, or that his consciousness wasn’t buried somewhere within Marie’s. That maybe things had been like they were before.

But on returning here, to their new home, Laura and the way their daughter just seemed a little too goddamn lonely had been a stark realization for them both. Things were not as they had been all those years ago when, for eleven months he had been the father his daughter had yearned for, had needed. Things were the same as they had been since that fateful May, especially for Laura. To Laura, Logan was still very much dead. And the divide, the distance, felt sharper and more significant than it had in years.

“You made it through the day, at least,” he was saying as she leaned into his chest, her breath still evening out from the tears. 

“This is so hard. I feel so  _ torn.  _ Between you, between her,” she murmured, turning back to look at him. 

“Laura comes first. We both know that,” he said, lifting a hand to her shoulder to gently massage it.

“I know. But you’re like a fucking  _ drug.  _ Especially when you...well...when you do that,” she sighed, leaning into his touch.

Logan chuckled slightly. “Man oughta give his woman a decent backrub.”

“You know, I was thinking about that,” Marie murmured, looking at him once more.

“What’s that, darlin?” 

“I...totally understand why, but we’ve been using this place almost primarily for sex in the past week.”

“Damn straight,” he muttered into her ear, before moving his free hand a bit lower to cup her ass. She grinned at him, before continuing on. 

“But...like with your writing. I wanna know more about that. I want to explore what else we can use this place for,” she said through a coy smile.

“Like backrubs?” he smirked. 

“Well  _ yes,  _ but I was hoping...and goodness knows not  _ tonight _ , but I was hoping you might spar with me? Maybe out in the clearing sometime?” 

Logan lifted a brow at this, intrigued by the idea. He could already feel his muscles flex, as if the body Marie had given him was suddenly salivating at the thought. He’d been using his body this past week to bite, nip, lathe, pound, grip and growl, but all in terms of fucking Marie properly. He hadn’t thought about what his newly established strength might mean in terms of a fight. Still though, he had questions.  _ Why now? And for what reason was she askin’? _

“Why do you wanna train, Marie? Ain’t like Laura is asking you to put on a leather suit and fight,” he muttered.

“But that’s just it,” Marie interjected. “Tonight, with the talk about the jet. I’m going to have to help with more than just the school. With so few of us, I might have to help for a while. I mean, bless Forge’s young, sweet heart, but he’s not going to be able to be dispatched on a mission any time soon. He needs substantial training, even if he can fix the jet. That leaves Dani, Rictor and Laura. And if I am called out, I don’t want to be an inconvenience, if the going gets tough.”

“An inconvenience?” Logan said sitting up more. “Kid. You got a healing factor, now. And yer fit as a fiddle.”

Marie snorted at this. “Yeah, ok. But I’m not  _ battle-ready,”  _ she muttered. 

“ _ Battle-ready?”  _ Logan asked through a tilt of his head. “Darlin’. There ain’t no Brotherhood. No Friends of Humanity. No more government conspiracies. Just a handful of fringe human rights group lookin’ to cause a little trouble. This ain’t before the jump. There ain’t a war happening.”

But Marie was already shaking her head. “Never say never,” she muttered, and he moved a hand to lift her face to his. 

“How long, kid? How long do you aim to put yerself in the line of service? To throw yerself between someone lookin’ to cause trouble and someone who needs savin’? Fucking centuries?”

“For as long as I’m able,” Marie said seriously. “And come on, Logan. You’d be doing they same thing if you could. They’re  _ being born again.  _ Don’t you see, sugar? I was so blind before. Laura is absolutely right. Those children, they’re gonna need us.”

“In all sorts of ways, kid,” Logan retorted. “You know it all ain’t fighting and runnin’. Those kids are gonna need to be fed. And clothed. And nurtured. And taught some fucking literature,” he said. At this, a dark look settled in Marie’s eyes, much to Logan’s dismay.

“I miss Storm,” Marie muttered. “We always made decisions about the school, especially as Charles’s health dwindled,  _ together.  _ She would know what to do now.” 

“Hell, kid,” Logan said through a sigh, before running a hand through his unruly hair. “You know I miss ‘Ro too. All of them. Even Slim, much as he was a pretentious son of a bitch,” Logan joked and Marie smiled despite her solemn mood. “But they’re long gone, kid, and  _ yer  _ here. Take what you know, and use it,” he said simply.

Marie sighed, nodding her head a little. “Oh, they will learn Tolstoy. I guarantee it,” Marie muttered to her hands that were currently folded in her lap. Finally, Logan let out a faint sigh, before giving in. Because he had known from the beginning he was gonna. When it came to Marie, he always would.

“And if it makes ya feel any fucking better, I will be glad to kick that sweet as of yers in a round of sparrin’,” he said, and she suddenly beamed at him like she was fucking seventeen again, running to meet him when he’d get off that bike after a long drive and thrown open the mansion’s doors.

“Ha! As if!” she joked, swatting him playfully on his shoulder, and Logan growled, pulling her closer to him. 

“You needta sleep,” he grumbled in her ear.

“I don't want to,” she shot back.

“I don’t much care what you want. It’s what  _ you _ need,” he said again, but his hand was already under her fucking shirt, and the way she was straddling him on the bed had him going hard almost instantly.

“I’ve had you for a week, after thirteen years of  _ not.  _ I want you. Desperately,” she hissed in his ear, and his hands were heavy as they held onto her hips. He sucked in a breath as she rolled them forward, even as her fingers grazed his belt and snuck under his wifebeater, running over his abdomen. 

“God...that feels so fucking  _ real, _ ” he muttered, closing his eyes and trying to focus as the touch of Marie’s hands on his body radiated through him. When he opened them though, he noticed Marie frowning slightly.

“What?” he breathed, trying to exist in some place between thoroughly aroused and sincerely concerned. 

“That word.  _ Real,”  _ she muttered.

“What about it?” he said, as he ran a hand over her arm.

“Why can’t this be real? Or why does it matter? You’re  _ here.  _ You’re  _ real,”  _ she finished quietly, leaning her head on his shoulder. Logan sighed, easily lifting her off him to settle her into a prone position on their bed.

“You know it matters. It matters to yer wellbeing. And it matters to Laura,” he mumbled, and Marie frowned, before Logan let out a low growl. 

“Now enough of this pity talk,” he grumbled, slowly moving to strip her of her shirt, hands tracing the lines of her body, scars and all, as he thumbed at the lace of her green bra, little pink flowers etched into the stitching.

“This is real pretty,” he muttered, and she blushed a bit. 

“Didn’t even have to really buy it,” she joked. “Say what you want, but having you up here in my head  _ is  _ extraordinarily cheaper when it comes to lingerie.”

Despite himself, Logan laughed out loud, before he growled, nipping her neck slightly, placing kisses down her chest and then abdomen once more, before meeting her jeans.

And that’s when it struck him. Something he hadn’t thought of, even though now the notion seemed incredibly, undeniably important. 

“Hey,” he managed to growl through a cloud of lust. 

“What?” she asked breathlessly,  just as Logan extended his claws on his left hand for the first time since he found himself here.

“Fuck. They still hurt like hell,” he said, staring at the illusion of adamantium jutting through his hand through a slight frown.  _ Real.  _ So real drops of his blood spattered onto the bedspread, one distinctly marring the pearly skin of Marie’s torso. 

Marie wasn’t bothered, however, and simply shrugged her shoulders through a smile. “Again, I had nothing to do with it. Your consciousness must really love those things.”

“ _ You  _ fucking love these things,” he growled, before easily and exactly slicing through the fabric of her jeans. She gasped a little at the intrusion, the savagery of it all, and then grinned devilishly at him.

“So maybe I do. But a girl’s gotta have  _ some  _ secrets,” she breathed, even as he sheathed the claws and moved lower, stripping her of what was left of her clothes, and staring up at her naked, beautiful body.

“Not from me you don’t,” he snarled, before moving lower and licking her center, and she gasped in pleasure, her hands in his hair, as she struggled to remember what it meant to be human.

  
  


\--

“Derek, do you want some coffee?” 

It was early morning, and the early risers, when Laura  _ hadn’t  _ managed to stay up all night, had once more rendezvoused in the kitchen. The younger man was yawning over a copy of the  _ Wall Street Journal,  _ looking tired. Logan had taken a liking to the kid, mainly because he was dealin’ with being the black sheep of the heard.  The man was pasty white, and had balding hair, glasses, and a bit of a gut, but he was also incredibly intelligent, was thoroughly loyal to mutant rights, and one of the more decent human beings Logan had come across. Ironically enough, even though Logan had once made a joke Dani was out of his league, to which Marie had mentally chastised him, Logan still thought, deep down, Dani had chosen well.

“Sure, Marie. Thank you,” Derek muttered.

“You settling in alright? Is the room suiting you ok?” Marie was asking. “Not going crazy in this house of crazies?” Marie joked. The man laughed a bit, before stifling a yawn.

“Dani has me hooked on  _ Breaking Bad.  _ She’s obsessed with shows from the early 2000’s,” Derek was muttering as Marie offered him a mug and he nodded in appreciation.

“Hey, that was my era. Don’t knock it,” Marie teased, before pouring herself her own mug smelling of hazelnut and cinnamon.

“Wouldn’t dare,” he said.

“So…” Marie muttered staring at the man again. It was conversations like these that Logan chose to sit a little further back in Marie’s consciousness, letting her have the time and space to think. To just be. “How are we doing?”

“Pretty much on target. Although, the backer’s assistant has been rather...unimpressed...with how  _ little  _ money we’re spending, honestly. Remodels to the entire mansion are set to be completed by the end of the year, with as hard as Laura is dogging them.”

“Hrm,” Marie was saying through a sip of coffee. “Sounds great. Although maybe I’ll tell Laura to ease up on the contractors a little.” After another thought, Marie then added, “Derek?”

“Yeah?” he asked. 

“You keep saying “pop” instead of “soda”. I’m not sure if I’ve asked before, which makes me feel terrible, but where are you from? You worked in Canada, but there’s no way you’re from there.”

“No,” muttered, looking down to his coffee. “Spent some time in Boy’s Town. But mainly grew up around Des Moines,” he said. “Went to McGill for school though.”

“Same as Laura?” Marie asked, curious.

“She didn’t tell you? I was three years ahead of her. She gave me Dani’s number,” Derek said through a smirk.

_ Heh. Laura playing matchmaker? That’s a new one,  _ Logan quipped, and Marie inwardly chuckled.

“She failed to mention that particular detail. So...we’re not going broke?”  Derek shook his head. 

“Not even close. Although, there’s been a little pressure to try to recruit more.”

“Recruit?” a new voice in Marie’s left ear, and Logan watched as Dani tiredly rolled into the kitchen, stumbling over and giving Derek a kiss on the cheek. 

“Coffee’s on the pot,” Marie said. “Recruiting students. Which seems to be my major problem.”

“Why’s that?” Dani asked through a yawn, procuring a fresh mug of coffee for herself.

“I’m not a  _ marketing  _ person. And certainly not a psychic. We don’t have access to Cerebro until we find one, so I’m not sure how to  _ locate  _ students,” Marie grumbled, to a nod from Derek and Dani.

_ Give it time, kid,  _ Logan reassured. 

And then, Laura tore into the hall. Logan had easy access to Marie’s hearing to understand her heart was pounding, and he could easily tell the smell of sweat on her temple was from fear, not from an early morning workout.

“Everyone. To the foyer.  _ Now,”  _ she snarled, and Logan felt Marie immediately standing. Rictor was close behind Laurs as well, it being obvious that Laura had forced him awake, as he was shirtless and only in sweatpants. Figuring it had to be bad, Logan quickly jumped forward in Marie’s consciousness, practically alongside her now, already rattling off a list of potential threats.

_ Waterline break. Backer’s yankin’ the carpet out from under us. Magneto’s back. Do we have confirmation that that bastard ever really fuckin’ died? Fuckin’ conservative president made another racist slur.  _

The TV was already on, and they all realized, in that moment, it was much, much worse.

_ Fuck. The M.L.F.  _ Logan muttered. 

_ Who?  _ Marie asked, even as she took in the news. Marie watched as footage of what looked like a group of bandits in black masks torch an American embassy in Toronto, screaming things like  _ Mutants over humans!  _ Three humans had died in the blaze, and of the mutants had been caught and arrested, and there was now a spat between the Canadian and American governments about who would try them.

“Who the hell  _ are _ these guys?” Laura was practically shouting, staring at Marie wildly. 

“The MLF,” Marie was stammering. “I don’t-”

“If you  _ don’t _ know, then ask Logan  _ more,”  _ Laura snarled, oblivious to Derek, who was staring at them all in shock, or Forge, who had just strolled in at the worst possible moment.

_ Holy fuck,  _ Logan muttered.  _ Kid’s just blown our cover. _

_ Don’t worry about that now. Who the fuck was the MLF again? I’ve got jackshit on them. It’s gotta be the other timeline. Use my voice. Try to sound like me. Give them information, stat. Laura’s gonna lose it. _

_ Fuck. You sure? _

_ YES. _

And then he had access to it, the ability to truly speak. In his memory, all the fuckin’ missions, all the goddamn times the X-Men had to spend ensnared in battles with the Mutant Liberation Front poured forward. 

“The MLF means the Mutant Liberation Front. Back in the day they were a bunch of young extremists lookin’ to get their asses kicked,” Logan said via Marie.

_ Stop dropping your goddamn “gs” if you don’t want to completely bust us,  _ Marie hissed.

_ Fuck. Ok. _

But it was too late. Laura was looking at Marie with all the assurity in the world that Logan was speaking now, and speaking quick.

“Uh. Don't know who _ these _ assholes, er, people are  _ now.  _ But in the past they reacted too quickly, and usually with too much violence. Sorta like the Brotherhood, but with far less discipline. In the past, these kids would set humans on fire if they deemed it righteous enough. Made mutants look like villains. A prime enemy of the X-Men for a long time,” Logan finished, then immediately retreated into Marie’s mind.

_ Fuck!  _ Logan cursed, as Marie looked from Laura, to a nervous Dani, to an altogether befuddled Forge, to Derek.

“God damnit, dad,” Laura cursed, wiping her forehead and looking around the room to the few people who didn’t know what was happening inside Marie’s mind.

“Ugh. Fuck. Sorry. To the people in the room in the dark. Forge. Derek. You know what Marie’s, or  _ Rogue’s,  _ powers are, yes?” 

_ “Laura ... algunas cosas no son tuyas para contarlas _ ,” Rictor was trying to interject.

“ _ ¡Maldita sea, Rictor! ¡Deja de hablar! _ ” Laura snarled.

Forge cleared his throat loudly, and muttered a, “Y-yeah, Laura. Everyone knows.”

“Well, when Logan was dying, via adamantium poisoning, Marie absorbed him permanently. His consciousness, or  _ whatever,  _ is up there, all the time, even if the actual man is gone,” Laura spat, before glancing back nervously to the TV.

_ She’s throwing a fucking fit,  _ Logan growled.

_ Give her a break,  _ Marie tried to soothe him

_ Hell, no. Stand up for yerself. Clarify. And tell her to fuck off,  _ Logan was snarling at the impetuous nature of Laura’s reaction.

Forge especially was now staring incredulously at Marie, before muttering quietly, “Y-you  _ killed  _ Wolverine?”

_ That _ did it. Marie frowned deeply, snapped up the remote for the TV and shut it off.

“Yes. I did. Because I had to. It was the hardest thing I ever did in my life. And  _ yes.  _ Logan  _ is  _ with us. And he  _ isn’t gone _ ,” Marie snarled, shooting a glance at Laura who was stiffly crossing her arms. “He’s just up here now,” Marie added as she tapped her temple. No one spoke, and Marie’s anger doubled.  

“Listen, everyone. We don’t want to keep secrets. If you’re under this roof, no matter  _ who you are  _ or  _ how long you’ve been here,  _ you’re family. It’s just a complicated thing to explain. A thing that needed  _ time,”  _ Marie once more insidiously stared at her daughter. “I’ll answer any questions you have soon. But for now,  _ hija,  _ follow me,” Marie growled, and Laura shot her a look, but for some reason still trailed behind Marie. Logan could read Marie’s thoughts, and couldn’t agree more. She was headed directly for the old gym. The gym where Logan had taken Marie to the floor and had given her enough healing factor to save her life. The gym where Logan had held countless fight club meetings. The gym were Logan had met Dani, and had sparred with her the first time. If Laura needed to physically drain her anger, this was the place to do it. 

As Marie shoved open the rusted door, she rounded on Laura almost instantly.

“What  _ the hell  _ was  _ that?!”  _ Marie sneered.

“Can I at least know who I'm talking to first?!” Laura snapped. Marie groaned angrily, stepping closer to Laura, so close Logan could easily see the whites of Laura’s eyes simmer with tension. 

“This is  _ me,  _ Laura. Marie. We would tell you otherwise  _ unless  _ you put us on the spot, which  _ you just did.  _ That’s the very last thing, the farthest thing, from acting like a leader,” Marie spat. Laura sneered, laughing cruelly as she stepped back and started to pace in a tight circle in front of them.

“And what do you know about leadership? You were both about to  _ jump ship  _ when things got too bad! I need  _ more help. I need… I need….”  _ Laura dropped off, and this time Logan jumped forward, with Marie’s quick and quiet permission.

“Laura, it’s yer father,” Logan hissed. At this point, Laura stopped dead in her tracks, staring at Marie with tears in her eyes. 

“Hi, dad _ ,”  _ she grumbled, and he couldn't help but use Marie’s voice to growl in response. 

“Listen kid, I don’t know what kinda shit yer pullin’, but yer overreacting. This MLF stuff ain’t nothing compared to what was happening back then. Yer making everything harder,  _ worse-”  _ he muttered before his daugher interrupted.

_ “¿Como si ustedes dos han hecho las cosas fáciles desde que llegaron aquí? ¡Ustedes están envueltos en ustedes mismos, perdiendo un tiempo precioso!”   _ Laura spat.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was dragging Marie’s feet forward to his daughter.

_ Careful, sugar,  _ Marie warned.

_ Just another goddamn minute!  _ he mentally shouted.

“Listen, Laura. You ain’t gotten over my death?  _ Fine.  _ But yer a leader now, and typically a damn fine one. But you can’t let yer fucking  _ personal shit,  _ the fact  _ yer jealous  _ or lonely or whatever to get in the way of how to fuckin’ lead. Those people...they look up to you. Maybe Marie and I messed it up in the past, never were the leaders of this place,  _ but you are _ . And you sure as shit aren’t imitating Scott or the Professor right now. So, you’re lonely. You don’t want an empty bed? Go find someone to fuck. You want to feel closer to yer family? How about you stop treating me like a fucking ghost and more like a goddamn person?”

“Because you never talk to me unless you’re angry! Because you  _ hide. Estas avergonzado. Decepcionado en ti mismo. Enojado no estás aquí. ¡Y no lo eres! Miro a mi alrededor y no te veo. Pero incluso dentro de Marie, te escondes. ¡Estás actuando como un maldito  _ cobarde _! _ ” she spat, before growling again, instantly losing her ability to speak as she paced wildly. 

_ Motherfucker. You women and yer words,  _ Logan snarled, immediately giving back Marie’s autonomy. 

_ Don’t be sexist. She has a point. But, sugar, she’s lost herself, I think,  _ Marie hissed to Logan, watching Laura snarl and growl and pace. The rest of the crew had snuck in here, following the drama, and Logan could feel Marie’s anxiety spike. 

_ The goddamn animal just took over. She’s got rage. Take her down to snap her out of it,  _ Logan growled.

_ Are you insane? She’s stronger than me! Quicker than me _ !

_ She’s sloppy with anger. I’ll tell you what to do. You want a fucking sparring lesson? You wanna be “battle-ready?” Here’s yer chance. Speak her language. Right now, her feet aren’t planted. Roundhouse kick. Sweep her left foot out from under her. Show her you mean fucking business _ .

“ _ ¡Marie! Si necesitas ayuda para controlar a Laura _ -” Rictor was shouting, but Marie simply shook her head. 

“ _ ¡Esto es entre nosotros! _ ” Marie muttered, planting her own feet before silently and deftly delivering Laura to her knees. 

Laura snarled, looking up to her mother in confusion. 

“You aren’t yourself. And you’re not listening. You need to get it out? Expel some rage? On your feet,  _ hija,”  _ Marie challenged.

_ Atta girl,  _ Logan barely had time to say before Laura struck. A swipe left, right, double left. Her claws weren’t extended, but they didn’t have to be. Logan was screaming directions in Marie’s mind.  _ Duck. Duck again. Shift left, hit with yer right. Jump, roll. Good job, kid. Oh fuck! Left! Right fucking now!  _

_ What?!  _ Marie had time to ask before taking a hit to the shoulder, which took Marie to her knee.  _ Fuck _ !  _ Get up, woman! On the offensive, now!  _ Logan was shouting. But instead, Marie didn’t follow orders, whispering venhementy to Logan-  _ This is ridiculous. I’m not  _ you _. I don’t do it that way-  _ and choosing instead to stand through seething, haggard breath and tears. Deliberately, she strode forward to a wild-eyed Laura and clutched her, held her close, just fucking collected her in her arms. 

Laura cried then, collapsing her head on her mother’s shoulder. They stood like that for a while. Simply existing. 

“Goddamn you both,” Laura finally whispered, fiercely. “Goddamn you both for choosing this half-life, over death. For both disappearing. For not giving me a  _ choice _ . _ Por dejarme atras.” _

“Laura…” Marie whispered, before the younger mutant let out a low, threatening growl, stalking off through the crowd of her teammates and out the door, alone.

 


	5. Renaissance

**Chapter 5: Renaissance**

**_New York City, October 2043_ **

 

At the moment, it didn't particularly matter what woman it was, so long as it was a woman. She currently had the blonde in an alleyway, hand snaked down her jeans, mouth on her neck, tasting her pulse and counting down the seconds until the woman came. The blonde had claimed she was straight, but the way she had leaned into Laura at the bar had told her this woman was at least curious, and Laura had risen the the challenge to satisfy said curiosity. This wasn’t typically her thing, going after women who weren’t sure, but she could give a flying fuck tonight. She was all fire, horrifically drunk, and blind with lust. The woman moaned, sighed, whimpered, hands threaded in Laura’s hair as she kissed her, and everything in Laura rose up to send the blonde over the edge, to have her barely standing in those four inch heels of hers while the brick wall took the abuse of Laura’s lust. 

The night was cold and the wind bit at Laura’s bare shoulders from where the woman had wildly stripped her of her leather jacket, Laura now just in a black tank top and jeans. The woman writhed beneath her touch, and Laura added pressure until the woman was coming undone, crying out in pleasure. It took everything in Laura to stifle the hungry animal inside her and bite down on her neck,  _ el animal  _ always interested in marking its latest conquest. They were both gasping for breath after, limbs loose as Laura gently steadied her against the wall. 

The blonde wiped her forehead from a sheen of sweat despite the chilly weather as her blue eyes stared wildly into Laura’s own. That’s why Laura had picked her out of the dozen women she could have had that night. For her eyes. Well that, and her remarkable ass. 

“ _ Holy fuck,”  _ the blonde finally breathed. “I’ve...I’ve never done that before with a...a woman….” 

Laura only grumbled something incoherent as she kissed the woman’s neck. She knew now. She could take this woman home. She’d call a car and then she could just lose herself in that sweet scent all night, and maybe  _ that  _ would help.  _ Maybe, just maybe.  _

“No man has ever made me feel like that,” the blonde breathed, adjusting her shirt and trying to zip up her jeans, even as Laura toyed with her hair, hand still rested on one of the blonde’s hips. 

“Glad you liked it,” Laura finally mumbled into her ear. She could feel the woman’s cheeks flush with shyness, and Laura decided it was time to push her luck.

“What do you say we get outta here? I have a place downtown,” Laura whispered, pulling back just enough to look the woman in the eye to read her reaction properly. It didn’t take much. She could smell the spike in the blonde’s arousal once more, and then she was nodding meekly anyway. Laura’s confidence surged, and the mutant viciously kissed the woman again. The woman sighed and leaned into Laura intuitively, and Laura savored it until everything changed when her hearing picked up on drunken laughter coming around the alleyway corner. 

_ “Shit,”  _ Laura muttered, just as the group made their way to the mouth of the alleyway and some asshole yelled, “Get a room, you fucking dykes.” Laura growled, turning around quickly to glare at the drunken group of college students with fucking popped polo collars. Two of the men were snickering, one had an ugly sneer. One looked scared.  _ Bueno. Él debería ser, el animal  _ hissed to Laura, before she turned back to the woman, who had gone red with embarrassment. She grabbed the woman’s hand, muttered a “come on,” intending to shove past the fucking preps, but one of them stepped forward threateningly, and she realized at least this one wanted to really make trouble, and the hair on Laura’s arms stood up as suddenly the alleyway reeked of danger. 

Laura’s grip tightened on the woman’s hand, realizing the night was over, before she turned, shielding the blonde from the men as she quickly whispered to her, “go home.”

“But...I thought...” the blonde whispered, blue eyes darting to the men in fear, before staring back into Laura’s own.  _ Goddamnit.  _ Perfect  _ azul.  _ Laura’s weakness. 

“Don’t worry about it,  _ bonita.  _ Be safe. Leave through the door we came out here from,” Laura managed to growl.

“But… what about you? I didn’t even get your name,” the blonde whispered desperately, and the way she tilted her head slightly had something creully twisting inside Laura’s chest.  The mutant frowned, and instead of responding, she fiercely kissed the woman one last time, much to the heckling of the group of men.

“Go,” Laura finally hissed. The woman lingered for one more moment, biting her lip, before she grabbed her purse, heels clicking on the pavement as she went back through the backdoor of the bar. Laura watched her leave and the door slam shut behind, and felt the ache of loss of what could have been. That’s when she turned to the fucks who had ruined it all, and started snarling.

“You picked the wrong night, you bigoted motherfucking  _ pendejo _ s,” Laura muttered her last words through bared teeth, before she felt  _ el animal  _ taking over. A couple of them had already lost interest and were walking back out of the alley, but the one with the sneer and the one with the fearful look on his face had stayed. 

“Hey, hey, Mike. Looks like this tiny Mexican bitch wants to take us,” the asshole spat. 

“Just… let it go, Aaron. Come on, Bella is waiting to pick us up and she’s really busting my ass.”

Laura was outright growling as she stalked toward them.

“Hey. Weird animal lady, we didn’t mean anything, alright? Just a fucking joke,” the scared one was trying to say. “Aaron, let’s go. This chick is straight up growling.”

“Fucking  _ queer,”  _ the other sneered, and that was that.  _ El animal  _ had made up its mind. 

Laura snarled, and she could feel the hot, wet pain of her claws extending as she closed the space between them in the mouth of the alley.

“Holy shit!” the scared one shouted as he stared down at the angry metal jutting out of her hands. He started to try to run, and Laura yelled, hurling forward, easily sliding to her knees to thrust her claw  through bones and ligaments alike of the left foot of one and the right foot of the other, and she sweetly savored the  _ snap  _ and  _ crack  _ and  _ crunch  _ of bones breaking. The screaming started instantly , and they dropped like bags of sand as soon as Laura yanked her claws out of them both.

The other two that had tottered off were back. The fat one had dropped his brown bag, another was shouting, but Laura only saw red. Blood-rage. Quickly, she stood, snarling, even as the nasty one was screaming, “You fucking mutie bitch!” from the ground where he had fallen. Laura looked down to the man writhing on the pavement and sneered. Without a moment’s thought, she popped a foot claw, driving it through the man’s open hand, effectively crucifying him to the ground for several vicious, unyielding moments, savoring his screams, before she deftly jerked upward and released him, showering them both in a spatter of red. More screaming. More shouting. More chaos.

“Hey, hey, hey!”

“She’s fucking stabbing people! She’s got knives in her fucking  _ feet!”  _

“Call the fucking cops!”

“Laura!”

Laura whipped her head around to see that Marie’s Volvo had appeared near the mouth alley, one of the windows rolled down. Instinctively,  _ el animal  _ sniffed the air to verify the voice belonged to who she thought.

_ Cole.  _

“Get your ass in the fucking car before you get arrested. Now!” 

Laura growled once more, but her boots were quickly stalking to the idling vehicle on their own anyway.  _ El animal  _ was still in control, but she managed to get into the car and slam the door shut. 

“Manual mode! Fuck!” Cole shouted to himself and a steering wheel materialized. He floored the pedal, and the car tore off down the darkened street.

The young man with long, black hair and a five o’clock shadow and glasses on his face who was supposed to be in fucking  _ Canada  _ was currently shouting expletives at her, as Laura tried, helplessly, to come back to herself through the haze of anger. 

“What the  _ fuck was that,  _ Laura?!” he was shouting.

Laura only growled, gripping the armrest tightly. 

“ _ The vehicle advises the driver to slow down, as you are significantly breaching the speeding limit. You have ten seconds to comply before the authorities are alerted,”  _ the car’s stereo said, and Cole was cursing all the more loudly.

_ “Fuck  _ these cars!” Cole shouted, and slightly lowered his speed, hanging a right to park in an alleyway ten blocks north of the bloody scene they had left behind.

Laura bared down in her own mind, breathing heavily and focusing all of her energy on coming back to herself so  _ el _ goddamn  _ animal  _ didn’t decide to stab Cole in the fucking neck with how much he was pissing it off. 

“What were you thinking,  _ ts’ékui _ ? Why the fuck are you stabbing random people now?”

“Need _...a second _ ,” she barely could make out through gritted teeth.

“Give me a goddamn  _ break _ ,” Cole yelled. “The only reason I found you was somehow your transponder wasn’t dead yet-”

“ _ Cole! _ ” Laura shouted, turning to him, rage in her eyes. Finally the man shut up, although his dark brown eyes were simmering with a similar anger as he waited for the animal to fully retreat from the forefront of Laura’s mind. Whatever. That was fine. He didn’t have a pissed off Wolverine taking up space in his head that made him do dumb shit like stab people. He had the  _ luxury  _ to be mad as hell and not leave a path of blood and severed limbs in his wake.

A few minutes passed and things settled. He waited patiently until her breathing evened out, before he muttered, “You yourself yet?” 

Laura nodded silently, rubbing her nose with a bloodied hand.

“Here,” Cole muttered, tossing her a box of Kleenexes from the back seat, which of course Marie had in her car. Laura also knew Marie had a container of Purell, wash cloths, two spare changes of clothes and a spare pair of boots for Laura in the trunk. Her mother knew her daughter well. Not that Laura gave much of a fuck at the current moment.

“Thanks,” she murmured, snagging a couple of tissues to wipe the blood off her hands, although most of it had already dried and her fingers were caked in red. 

“You, uh, have blood on your face too,” he muttered, and Laura sighed through frustration, flipping down the mirror angrily to wipe someone else’s blood off her cheek.

“What are you even doing here?” she finally growled, flipping the mirror back and propping a heavy boot on the dash of Marie’s car. For a moment Cole just stared at Laura’s foot, fixating on the obvious bloodstained gouge where adamantium had pierced through skin and leather alike. 

“Laura, you  _ invited  _ me. You fucking set up the teleporter a week ago.  We were supposed to have a meeting with the backer’s people this afternoon. Remember, I’m your lawyer?”

Laura sighed heavily, bringing a hand up to her head.

“Fuck. Right,” Laura muttered. “Shit, Cole. I forgot about that one.”

At this, Cole shook his head quietly. “Marie said you’ve pretty much been on the lam for like a week. Skirting your duties, slinking in and out, staying in NYC. Even if you’re pissed, you’re not a goddamn  _ teenager,  _ Laura,” Cole began to chastise.

“Spare me the lecture,” Laura spat, and Cole sighed.

“I’m  _ not  _ lecturing. I’m just trying to figure out what the fuck happened-” he began. 

“What happened is that I just spent my last sixty dollars buying drinks for a blonde all night and all I got out of it was fingering her in an alleyway. Then these guys started harassing us, and I felt like teaching them a fucking lesson in  _ tolerance _ .”  

“Real cute, Laura,” Cole grumbled. “I didn’t mean the dumb shit you just pulled. I meant this  _ thing  _ with Marie,” Cole said, quieting his voice slightly. Laura said nothing for a moment, staring down at her bloody hands.

“There’s no  _ thing _ ,” Laura muttered. “I just… needed some time away. From them  _ both.”  _ Cole bit his lip, but didn’t respond. For a while, neither one spoke, as both of them stared out at the darkened city streets of New York in front of them. 

“How’s Sandra?” Laura finally asked in the dark. Cole sighed, scratching the scruff of his jaw tiredly.

“Fine. At home with Charlie. Probably wanting to murder me because he’s three months old and has colic right now and I was supposed to be here  _ a single _ afternoon, and instead I’ve been trying to chase down your womanizing ass for the last four hours,” Cole muttered 

That did it. Instantly, a heaping dose of guilt settled in the pit of her stomach as she turned to look at her old childhood friend.

“ _ Fuck. _ I’m..I’m sorry Cole.  _ Listen,  _ you caught me at a... bad time.”

“No shit,” he muttered, finally pushing the button to start the car again, this time putting it in computer mode before typing in an address into his phone. He sat back as the car pushed off, and Laura raised her brow a bit in concern. 

“Where’re you taking me?” she asked quietly.

“Manhattan. You’re gonna sleep this one off in your apartment, then I’m gonna drive your ass back to Westchester in the morning.”

“I can take care of myself. I’ll walk back,” she muttered.

“We’re in fucking  _ Queens,  _ Laura. It would take you all night. And you have a hole in your shoe,” Cole muttered, massaging his temple in frustration as he gestured down at her boot.

“I have holes in all my shoes,” she grumbled to him.

“Then you’re  _ stabbing  _ too many people,” he muttered, looking at her wildly. 

“Yeah, well. A lot of fuckers _ deserve it _ ,” Laura spat, but something about this line, as soon as it came out of her mouth, had her smiling slightly, even as she shook her head in disbelief at the absurdity of the entire screwed-up night. She turned to Cole, throwing him a small grin. When he looked over to her, he rolled his eyes, but she could see some of his anxiety lifting.

“It’s good to see you,” she finally said.

“Uh huh,” he grumbled, not yet willing to let her off the hook.

“Like really, Cole,” she said. “Not that I needed the help, but if it had to be anybody, I’m glad it was you.” And then Laura was truly grinning.

“Are you seriously smiling right now?” he asked through frustration. “Why?” 

“I just- It’s funny to me,” she said.

“ _ What?”  _ he asked. 

“You should think about signing up for the X-Men. The way you tore outta there. We could  _ use  _ you on missions. I don't know why the fuck you’re a lawyer, _ ”  _ Laura laughed, and Cole rolled his eyes.

“You’re so fucking full of it. I’ll stick to law,” Cole said before falling silent once more, as the car made its way over the inky black of the East river across the bridge to Manhattan. Finally though, he added through a tired sigh, “What did those bastards even say to you to make you  _ that  _ pissed off?” At this, Laura frowned slightly as she tried to recall what specifically about it all had set  _ el animal  _ off. 

“Called me a dyke. If it had only been that, I think would have let it go, because whatever, I  _ am _ one. But they embarrassed the woman I was with, and one of them wanted to push us around. Fucker threw ‘mutie bitch” in there too. Haven’t heard that last one in a while,” Laura mumbled to the dark. 

“Shit. I’m sorry, Laura.”

“Don’t be. Usually that stuff rolls off my back, but lately...it just  _ gets  _ to me,” she said blankly.

“I understand that,” Cole muttered. 

“You do?” Laura asked quietly. 

“Laura, I’m a native man with long hair and brown skin. Even in Canada, I get that kinda shit. Even Sandra the other day had to deal with some racist assholes at the goddamn grocery store. I mean, everything was ok, but she cried for like an hour…” he trailed off through a shake of his head.

“Fuck. I’m sorry,  _ chulo, _ ” Laura muttered as she drew her feet up close to her. Again, silence for a few moments.  She was almost entirely sober again, and the memory of the blonde came back to her. The worst part was that it had been  _ decent  _ conversation all night. The woman had been intelligent, sweet. She had made Laura laugh, which was actually a remarkable feat considering Laura’s morose and gloomy demeanor over the past week of self-sabotage. Laura had started the night out intending it to be just another night of messing around with a willing, random woman, but the chick had been... _ real.  _ Laura once more cursed herself for not getting her name. Then, Laura remembered the frightened look in the woman’s blue eyes in the alley, and her anger spiked. 

“ _ Why _ ?” she asked to the dark.

“Why, what?” Cole muttered, turning to her. 

“Why do they  _ hate us  _ so much?” 

Cole said nothing for a moment, maybe because there was nothing to say, no easy answer. Laura herself didn’t even know if she was asking about mutants, or her race, or her sexuality, or even the fact she was a goddamn  _ woman _ , but sometimes it felt like there were so many targets on her back that one day her healing factor simply wouldn’t be able to catch up. Finally though, Cole responded, his voice surprising Laura slightly as it cut through the dark.

“I don't know,  _ sets’éni _ . But what you’re doing with the X-Men, that’s what’s important. Expel the hate. Change the narrative. Set it right. But its  _ not  _ done by stabbing random people in the alley, even if they were a bunch of bastards.”

Laura sighed at this, and then bit her lip slightly in guilt. Perhaps  _ el animal  _ did overreact, but that didn’t mean the world wasn’t the way it was. Staring back at the dazzling lights of midtown Manhattan, the neighborhood stoops of Harlem long having bled into the touristy ritz of the theatre district, Laura ruminated. This town was full of contradictions, full of promise, full of fear. Westchester was different, quieter and more settled, and that sometimes got to her. Chaos thrived in the streets of New York City, but humanity  _ was  _ chaotic. That’s why, Laura assumed, she escaped here so often. To simply be a part of it: the war within our souls. 

The car was deep into the lower east village by the time they spoke again, and when she looked up, Laura was struck with an idea.

“Take us to Katz’s instead,” she said simply.

“You’re hungry?” Cole asked.

“Yeah. I want a fucking pastrami sandwich stacked as high as they’ll serve it to me,” Laura said. Cole just shook his head through a small smile.

“You and food. You either don’t eat at all or you’re eating everything in sight. Reminds me of highschool,” Cole grumbled.

“You know those burger runs are the only reason I was your friend. Because you worked at the Driftwood,  and got us free food from that crummy little diner,” Laura joked.

“Yeah, yeah,” Cole said, and the slight smile on his face had Laura thinking maybe he would forgive her in the end.

  
  
  


\--

“You know, this show isn’t _that_ bad,” Cole muttered, staring at the projection of the fourth season of _Friends_ currently playing in the living room of Laura’s lower east side apartment. They had already gorged themselves on sandwiches and fries, but now were currently eating Ben and Jerry’s ice cream out of containers from Laura’s mostly-empty freezer, feet propped up on Laura’s coffee table, ripped-up boots at all. It was three in the morning. Laura had offered Cole the pull-out couch to sleep on, but he was used to a different time zone, and, even though he appeared exhausted, he muttered he wasn’t _all that_ tired.

“Yeah, but it isn’t that good either. How long is this romantic ‘will-they-won’t-they’ tension gonna last?” Laura said frustratingly through a bite of Cherry Garcia, before thrusting the spoon in the direction of yet another shot of Rachel Green pouting on the haloprojector. “Whatever. It doesn't fucking matter. Dani’s got us all hooked on it. Mom, especially. She said she was obsessed with it as a teenageer. But Logan hates every minute of it. Can’t say that I blame him.”

Cole shot Laura a look at the mention of her parents, but didn’t press her. Instead, he got up to pluck two more IPAs from the fridge and offered one to her. She took it, and smiled. Of course, this hadn’t been the hopeful night of romance with the blonde she’d expected, but she was grateful for her friend’s company. The truth was, for the greater extent of a week Laura had spent most of her time alone, between a woman here and there she had brought back to her apartment. Sex, unfortunately, was turning out to be a lot of work. The stress of apologizing, hemming and hawing when women asked for her number, was  _ almost  _ not worth the effort. So now, to be relaxed in someone’s company, with someone she knew well, was a welcomed change. However, at another lame nineties joke a character made, Laura rolled her eyes, setting the ice cream container down to snag an opened bag of potato chips.

“Jesus. Slow down, _ts’ékui_. When’s the last time you had any food?” he asked through raised eyebrows.

“I dunno. Maybe four or five days. Mainly just been drinking in bars lately,” she muttered through a swig of beer. 

“I don’t care if it offends your mutanthood, but that doesn’t seem healthy. Like  _ at all _ ,” Cole said through a laugh. Laura only shrugged her shoulders through a smirk. Healing factors were healing factors, although Marie had been getting on her lately about eating more often, and eating better. Like it mattered. 

“Well, if I ate something like ice cream in front of Sandra, she’d have my head. She’s got me on some kind of weird-organic-vegan-something diet lately that’s supposed to ‘give you energy and make you feel better’ but I just feel like I’m slowly dying  _ all the time.  _ But I do it because I love her. So, obviously, this shit,” Cole muttered, gesturing to his mostly-finished pint of ice cream, “never happened.” At that, Laura laughed, before wrinkling her nose a bit in disgust at the thought of a life without food she loved.

“If I couldn’t eat meat, I’d die. Healing factor or no. I’d just keel over and die. _ ¡Presta!  _ Gone. Dead. No more X-Men, no more Laura,” she said through a laugh.

“You know, it might be the whole  _ super hero  _ thing and all, but since you’ve moved here, you’ve had a flair for the dramatic. Like maybe you need to get yourself a goddamn cape,” Cole snickered, to which Laura threw him a look. 

“ _ Excuse me _ ?” Laura stammered.

“Where’s that somber, grim, take-no-shit Mexican-Canadian I used to know? You seem more flighty then I remember,” Cole pressed. Laura knew he was teasing, but something about his egging was rubbing her the wrong way.

“I’ll have you know, I’m a grown, ass-kicking, feral mutant lesbian. And I wouldn’t be caught  _ dead  _ in a goddamn cape,” she shot back, before deftly stealing Cole’s pint of Chunky Monkey off the table and taking a large bite of the banana and chocolate ice cream. 

“Uh huh,” Cole said through a gulp of beer and a smirk.

Laura frowned a little, before she noticed Cole’s posture become slightly uncomfortable, and she realized he had more he wanted to say. 

“What?” Laura pressed.

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask you, and  I don’t mean it to be  _ weird,  _ although I'm sure it’s gonna make me sound like an idiot, but uh...are you getting what you need, out of all of it?”

“With being an X-Man?” Laura asked with incredulity. 

“Uh, no. With the all the different...women?” Cole trailed off, and Laura almost spit out her beer. The typical rule, considering their complicated past, was that they never talked specifics about relationships. It just...never worked out well. 

“ _ Excuse me _ ?” Laura asked. 

“Uhh.  _ Shit.  _ Well…well. I mean… you’re  _ you. _ It’s your thing, being aggressive. Doing...uh...all the work,” he stammered. 

“Wait, wait,  _ wait.  _ Are you really trying to ask about the nature of  _ sexo lésbico? _ ” Laura asked, falling back into Spanish just at the sheer inanity of it all. 

“No. Jesus,  _ no _ ! I wasn’t necessarily talking about  _ sex.  _ I just want to make sure, well, I just wanted to make sure you're ok. Like…not too...alone?”

Laura bit her lip for a moment, realizing her friend had somehow, in only a handful of hours without knowing the specifics, cut through all her bullshit to get at the heart of the problem. Of why she had been so distant this past week from her family. Of why she’d been fucking around in New York, sometimes literally. Of why her heart couldn’t ever seem to heal.

Still though, she had no intention of burdening him with any of   _ that.  _ Cole had enough shit on his plate.

“Cole. I’m fine. Yeah, I fucking know I sleep around a lot right now. And yeah, I know it’s… frowned upon. Of what she even knows, Marie especially hates it.  _ Consider your feelings and those of others,  _ is what she always says. What she forgets or doesn’t know about is that women are often hungry for this random, nameless shit. So yes, I’m aggressive. Yes, I get what I want. Is that what you wanna hear?” she said bitterly, before taking another sip of beer. 

This time, Cole was somehow less thrown by her bluntness, and stared at her evenly. 

“Yeah, but ‘why? _ ’  _ is the thought I had. You could be with anyone. Why are you choosing just  _ anybody?” _

“We don't all find blissful happiness with the woman of our dreams, get married and settled by twenty-five, Cole,” Laura muttered. “That’s just you.”

“I get that. I do. I just…. I care about you. And you know...eventually, I hope you’ll find  _ someone.  _ To really be with. _ ” _

Laura frowned, and suddenly and without warning, an image of the late afternoon sky near the lake house back at Hay River filled her mind. She had been young, not even quite twelve, and it was the day Marie had kicked Logan and Laura out of the Bronco for squabbling, and it had ended up being one of the most important conversations she had gotten the privilege to have with her father.

_ “You have Marie. I have no one,” she had said, plopping down on the dusty white stairs of the deck. The smells of Marie’s cooking had been wafting from the house, but neither of them had moved inside. Not yet.  _

_ “Hey, enough of that. You know Marie is here for you too.” He was tall and strong and sturdy, all firm arms and graying hair and tough love, but he was also concerned and thoughtful as he settled down on the step next to his daughter.  _

_ “That’s not the same,” Laura muttered. _

_ “I ain’t gonna lie to you, kid. That’s the other part of this thing. You understand? You could live a very, very long time. Even if you meet someone you wanna… settle down with. If you meet that person earlier on, there’s a chance you might outlive him…or her.” _

_ “Papa,” Laura murmured, blushing. _

_ “It’s like anything else. You might have… needs. You gotta do your best to control them. Not stifle ‘em, mind you. Control. And consent. There ain’t nothing wrong with…being with someone that way.” _

_ “Papa… I didn’t mean. What I said earlier. I’m glad Marie is here.” _

_ “I know, hija. And kid…. Eventually, you’ll find your Marie. Whoever that person is. But first, find out who you are, huh?” _

They had sat like that for a long while, listening to the quiet around them. They had been fluent by then in that language that wasn’t entirely human, but wholly their own. Instinctive, feral even, but real.  _ You’re my father. You’ll protect me. You’re my daughter. I’ll protect you. _

_ But first...find out who you are.  _

Laura frowned once more at the vividness of the memory and the sharp pang that accompanied it, before finally answering her friend. 

“I don’t know,  _ chulo _ . Maybe that’s not me. You know I probably have a long time to live. But as much as people think I act like him, I’m  _ not  _ Logan. Maybe I’m not destined for my father’s and Marie’s fairy tale happily ever after. Maybe I don’t even want that,” Laura trailed off.

“Oh, come on Laura,” Cole muttered.

“What?”

“That’s not fair. From what you’ve told me, they went through  _ so much shit  _ to get a little happiness. And I’m not necessarily talking about a life partner, but for a while you might find someone you get to know for more than a night, someone you might love, even. I don’t think that’s such a bad thing,” Cole said looking at Laura honestly, with intent.

Laura said nothing, a darkness settling in her chest as she realized they had now approached the real reason Cole was here, the ultimate point this entire conversation was leading up to, and she hated it. Best to get it over with. 

“Logan… _Papá…._ was _…._ ” Laura attempted, then stopped, indulging in a heavy gulp of beer before continuing on. “He was my idol. He was everything. But Cole, and you _know_ this already, he chose to leave. Requested Marie _kill_ him. Yeah, he was dying. Yes, he might have been miserable. But he still made the conscious decision to leave me, leave her. Leave the _us_ we had created. I know he did it because he loved us. But...it hurt us all. And sometimes, it still hurts. Love can do that. Love _does_ do that. I’m not sure how much more I need of that in my life, especially when it comes to a partner,” Laura muttered, before bitterly adding, “There’s only so much one person can take.”

“Laura…” Cole once more trailed off, because a tear had crept down Laura’s face, which she quickly and vigorously wiped away.

“Tough, grown, ass-kicking feral mutant lesbians aren’t supposed to cry,” Laura said through a tearful laugh. 

“Are you fucking insane?  _ Everyone _ is allowed to cry,” Cole said, as, for the second time that night, he passed her a box of tissues, which she gladly took, blowing her nose loudly.

“It’s just that I… I fucked up, Cole,”  she continued on. “Like I  _ always do  _ when it comes to him. I told him he was _ hiding _ . That he was a  _ coward _ . I  _ don’t  _ want to think like that, but sometimes I can’t help it. I just...wanted him to fucking  _ live.  _ I  _ needed  _ him. And now,  _ now, _ Cole,  _ he never fucking directly speaks to me _ , unless he’s pissed. It’s like… it’s like he’s  _ scared _ of me,” Laura said through a solemn shake of her head.

“Laura. I know that has to be hard. But think about it. I can’t imagine they’re  _ trying  _ to exclude you-”

“-she can see him, now, Cole,” Laura interrupted. “Did you know that? She can _see_ him. Be with him. Which means.. _.fuck._..which means he might be _real._ That _really could_ be him. Which means I’ve spent a lot of my goddamn life pretending he isn’t. And that... _oh_ _god,_ ” she stopped, bringing her hands to her face. It’s then that Cole collected her in his arms, just hugging her, his lifelong friend, and Laura let him.

“Laura,” Cole finally said, gripping both of her shoulders at arm’s length. “Listen to me, _sets’éni_. I’m gonna give it to you straight. Ok? The only memories I have of my dad…. are ones where he was _hurting_ my mother. She’d walk into my bedroom after a loud fight, her lip split and her eye swelling up in pain, trying to play it off like she _deserved_ that shit. Even after we got out of that house, years later, I didn't have a male role model I didn’t fear after that. I didn't trust anyone bigger than me, more threatening. That is, until your dad, because he was the opposite.  I _remember him._ He was this huge, scary-looking dude, but he was _decent_. He had _heart._ He helped my mom at the drop of the hat with anything she needed, at any time. He treated me and my brother like the men we would become. And he sacrificed himself _constantly_ for you. You think he wanted to die? He fucking loved you _, yeghânétâ_ _,_ even if he was a terrifying son of a bitch. The last thing he wanted was to leave you. I truly believe that.”

Laura only blinked at her friend for a moment, marveling at how goddamn lucky she was to have him in her life, before the apartment’s computer system was ringing.

“ _ Call from Marie,”  _ it said. Once. Twice. Three times. 

“Speak of the devil,” Laura grumbled. 

“You gonna take that?” Cole asked through a nervous glance.

“No,” Laura muttered.

“ _ Call from Marie.” _

“You should answer it,” Cole said.

“I really don’t want to right now,” Laura said. 

“ _ Call from Marie.” _

“It could be important,” Cole said firmly.

“Jesus,” Laura muttered, finally giving in, picking up the phone to answer. 

“Hello?” Laura said quietly. She hadn’t said more than a handful of words to Marie in the days since the fight, choosing instead to ignore most of her responsibilities, more out of embarrassment than anything else. Marie was right. She  _ had  _ made a scene, in front of people that respected her and who she respected. She was just starting to realize the full extent of her actions and how stupid and selfish she had been.

“Laura?” Marie breathed on the other end. 

“Hi, Mom,” Laura muttered. “Is everything ok?”

“Yeah. I- we heard from Cole. He texted us. Are  _ you  _ ok?” Laura sighed, setting down her beer and putting her head in her hands.

“Yeah,” Laura muttered, shooting Cole an accusatory look from across the couch. “Had a little run-in with some...uh...dudes. But I didn’t kill anybody or anything. And everyone still has all their limbs. Unfortunately,” she grumbled. “Why are you up this late?”

“Forge just...well. Forge came barrelling into the kitchen about an hour ago. He’s been working around the clock. I’m not sure if that boy ever sleeps. Not that I was asleep either, because...well. We’ve been worried. But I’m calling to tell you...Forge fixed it,” Marie finished quietly.

“Wait, what?” Laura asked, shooting a glance at Cole who had raised his brows in curiosity.

“The Blackbird. And the computer system in the basement is back online too, so the roof will open. Saw it with my own eyes. ‘Still a lot of upgrades that will take months’ he said and he’s still working on repairs, but...Laura...the jet will fly.”

“Holy  _ fuck.  _ He’s been there for like...a  _ week,”  _ Laura muttered. She realized she was standing now, pacing the tiny living room in a mixture of nervous anticipation and excitement. Laura had always felt like the jet’s ability to work again meant  _ all  _ of it had the possibility of working again. If she could get the jet to fly, it meant better missions. It meant stealth. It meant  _ X-Men.  _ As the realization dawned on her, guilt, too, plagued her once more. She should have been there. Answering questions, helping Forge in any way possible. She had dumped that all on Marie by running off and licking her wounds in the city for the past week, and she suddenly felt terrible for it.

“Look,  Mom...I…” Laura began, but Marie immediately cut her off. 

“You don't have to apologize. I...get it. W _ e _ get it. We’re gonna try harder…”

“It’s not your job, or _his job_ , to do that. It’s something I have to-” Laura tried to say, but Marie cut her off again.

“We weren’t... trying to hurt you,” Marie finished, and Laura wondered, fleetingly, if she meant the tussle a handful of days ago or the very, very awful day Marie had ended Logan’s life for him, by his request. For a moment, neither person spoke, before Laura finally sighed. 

“Tell Forge to fire it up. I’ll be home in two hours,” Laura said quickly.

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve been staring at pictures of that plane in the sky my entire life,  _ madre. _ The  _ pajaro negro  _ is vital to everything. Let’s get her airborne. And only people with healing factors on this first flight, so you and me, just in case it, like, falls out of the sky or something. No offense to Forge, but I don’t wanna kill anybody,” she muttered.

“Of course, _mi_ _amada,”_ Marie trailed off for a moment, and Laura bit her lip in anticipation. Laura sucked at apologies, always had. Logan and Laura _both_ did. Apple, meet tree. Marie was a fucking saint for dealing with them all these years. That was simply the goddamn truth. 

“Listen, I love you both. And I’m going to try harder, too. I know you’re listening, dad.  _ Voy a tratar de hablarle más directamente, si haces lo mismo por mí, siempre y cuando Marie esté de acuerdo con eso. Te amo, y quiero sentirme más cerca de ti.  _ And...I’m sorry,” Laura finished lamely. There was a pause on the line, and for the hundredth, millionth time, Laura wondered what they were saying to each other. Finally, the older mutant spoke once more. 

“Yes. He says he will. _I_ will. And we love you, too. Just... _ven a casa,_ _hija._ Come home, _”_ Marie said, a desperate note in her voice.

“I’m on my way,” Laura muttered, before ending the call and looking up to Cole, who was already standing.

“Got a few more hours left in you,  _ chulo?”  _ Laura asked Cole.

“To see the jet fly? Hell yes,” Cole smirked, snapping off the projector of the scene of the twenty-somethings sitting around the couch at the Central Perk. “Let’s go fucking bring the X-Men back.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the beautiful @bluefrogsbestfrogs for editing this behemoth, along with the next one, for this double header special. I am forever in her debt.


	6. Altitude

**Chapter Six: Altitude**

**_Westchester, October 2043_ **

 

_ You ready for this, kid? _

_ Eh. As ready as you can be. _

_ When was yer last time on this thing? _

Logan watched as suddenly images bloomed in Marie’s mind as she sifted through them like she might a rolodex.

_ I think...jesus. Storm and I went to take back a student to Alaska during the last few days we were moving students out. _

_ Fuck,  _ Logan muttered.

_ Yeah,  _ Marie said.  _ How about you? _

Logan paused for a moment, before a sharp memory of one of his last missions as an X-Man made itself known in his mind. Slim had been there. Peter too. 

_ Right before Charles. We apprehended some white supremacist group or some shit. At that point it wasn’t even mutant-related. At the end, we were just trying to...help people.  _

Marie outwardly sighed as she looked up to the cavernous hangar the Blackbird was kept in. The lights were on down here now, and the jet for some reason seemed even more overwhelming. Logan could read Marie’s mind, always had been able to since she’d absorbed him, but he often could also feel her feelings, like large cresting waves that would wax and wane in her consciousness. And right now he was swimming in her own apprehension. 

_ This is gonna be hard,  _ Marie said.  _ I don’t really wanna go in there.  _

Logan once more mentally sighed, before whispering in Marie’s mind,  _ Yeah, kid. I know. But take a second and look at Laura. _

Marie turned her head, and she saw her daughter staring up at the jet with an vicious, animalistic hunger that surprisingly reminded Logan of himself. 

_ Like a kid in a candy store,  _ Logan muttered. 

_ She looks like she’s waiting to take down a fucking gazelle,  _ Marie said.

_ That’s what I’m sayin’,  _ Logan added through a mental laugh.

Forge was currently fiddling with the hatch door to get it to open, and the rest of them were all waiting close to the jet. Laura was now pacing in a tight circle as she waited. Cole, who had driven Laura back from the city, was standing a few feet behind the mutants, staring at the plane nervously. And of course there was Marie, who was biting her lip so hard Logan could feel the pain. No one had been inside the jet but Forge, and they were all waiting, at five in the fucking morning, to board the jet for the first time. The first time ever for Laura. The first time in a long time for Marie. 

_ You know, in the old timeline, it was one of the last things we had,  _ Logan murmured.

_ Yeah?  _ Marie asked, still mildly distracted.  

_ Yeah. Haven’t I told ya? Back in Mexico, back when I finally got my head out of my ass and started working for Chuck again. Storm and I were in charge of creating a perimeter around this motherfucking plane while it was stored in an old warehouse. We did that for fuckin’ weeks. Hiding out in shitty little towns. I was so fuckin’ sick of Tecate by the end of it I couldn’t ever drink the stuff again, in that or this timeline. _

_ Back when you “got your head out of your ass”? You mean when you… first met Rogue again?  _ Marie asked.

_ First time I reconnected with you, yeah,  _ Logan murmured.

Marie didn’t say anything for a moment, but another swell of emotion quickly bubbled up in her mind. And it was the color green.

_ Hell kid, you ain’t jealous of yer former self again, are ya?  _ Logan asked incredulously, even though he could feel it in every part of her mind.

_ No, no! Well, maybe. Well, yes. I guess I can’t lie to you. You read all my thoughts anyway,  _ she muttered.

_ You know I try hard not to darlin’. But sometimes, kid, you project a whole damn lot. God...you know I just had the thought…. this must have been how it was for Charles all the fucking time, with everyone,  _ Logan muttered.

_ Yeah. It had to be,  _ Marie said.  _ But whatever. Maybe I am a little jealous. Or maybe I just wanted more opportunities to see you squirm on a plane,  _ Marie teased.

_ Damn it woman. Let a man be, will you? _

The plan to distract Marie had worked, and he could feel some of her apprehension subside. Meanwhile, Logan watched as Forge tapped the last of the code into a new holoprojector that had been hastily welded onto the side of the jet. They all heard the familiar hiss and creak of the door lowering, the belly of the Blackbird opening up.  As Laura darted over to the door, Marie quietly trailed her. Cole stood back a bit, until Marie gestured with a jerk of her head that he, too, should join them.

_ Here we go,  _ Logan mumbled. 

As Marie’s boots made their way up the ramp, they both took in the cabin of the plane. Temporary halo projectors and extra screens and computers were patched on top of the old controls, distorting the Bird’s once sleek beauty and design. Still though, it was hauntingly familiar, down to the very same eight seats that were lined up two by two at the front of the plane.

Forge was plucking out some numbers on a keypad, looking nervously to Laura, who unintendedly shot a look to Marie and Cole.

_ To her, everything rides on this,  _ Logan muttered.

_ I know,  _ Marie said

“Jesus, Laura,” Cole remarked from the back of the plane. “I think this thing makes you a legitimate bonafide fucking superhero. Forget the goddamn cape.”

Laura laughed a bit nervously, turning back to throw a grin at her friend, before stalking over to the control center and Forge. 

“Ready?” Forge asked, looking to Laura, and then to Marie. 

“Fire her up,” Laura said, her words dripping with insatiable need.

Forge pressed one more button, and then, everything was thrumming. The lights came on, computers, old and new, roared to life, illuminated. Laura audibly gasped, Marie’s heart rate sped up, and Logan simply gawked at how the thing was able to come back to life from the dead.

_ Holy fuck _ , Logan marveled.

“Shit,” Laura echoed

“Oh, god, it works,” Marie mumbled. 

Marie and Laura shot another look to each other, just as Forge began speaking.

“So uh,” Forge said. “Right now, until I can make better, more permanent, updates, the controls are pretty much the same as when you left them in 2024, except for a few lines of code you need to input into the new machines,” he mumbled, shooting a nervous glance to Marie.

Marie nodded sharply. She had taken the time after her conversation with Laura to unshelve the memories, with Logan’s help, of how to operate the Blackbird, especially after Laura had requested only the healing factor mutants take this flight. 

“Are you sure, Mom?” Laura asked nervously. “You can teach me as you go, but for this flight…”

“I’m sure,” Marie muttered. 

“Forge… this thing really can fly right?” Cole asked the younger man once again. Logan noticed Cole seemed more tired than his typical, and once more he was grateful that the young man had obviously talked some sense into his daughter. Logan had never entirely understood their friendship that had stood the test of time and distance, but he respected it all the same. Also Cole was covering all their asses from a legal standpoint, which meant a great fucking deal to Logan.

“If it doesn’t, it would be the first time I was wrong,” Forge said running a hand through his hair. “I mean...I’ve never fixed a plane _ per se, _ but it’s still a computer, like anything else. That was the main problem with it, really. It couldn't communicate anymore. Marie had the aviation specialist she paid off for her silence last week check the mechanics, although I probably could have figured that out too.”

Cole simply blinked at the younger man. 

“You know, with a little more time,” Forge added through mild embarrassment from everyone staring at him.

“Hell,  _ sechÿle _ . We’re lucky to know you,” Cole muttered, stepping forward to shake the other man’s hand. Forge shook it briefly, smiling a little at Cole’s kind and accepting gesture.

“ _ And  _ we trust you,” Marie murmured, walking deftly forward to the very front of the cockpit. Laura watched her mother with keen eyes, and Logan noticed Marie’s hands were shaking as she momentarily placed her hands on the pilot’s helm.  

_ Charles flew this plane. Scott. Storm. Even Jean,  _ Marie whispered. 

_ So did you,  _ Logan offered quietly. Laura was looking to Marie nervously, before Marie turned back to Forge.

“Five minute test run. That’s it. We test the stealth mechanism, the plane’s speed, it’s agility, and then we’re back on the ground,” Marie said. Forge nodded to both women, offering them tiny, delicate ear pieces that he had fabricated into transponders, before he gestured to Cole to exit the plane. 

“Be safe,  _ ts’ékui _ ,” Cole said to Laura, before putting a hand on her shoulder. 

“You know I will,  _ chulo,”  _ Laura grinned. Then, both men left, and Marie and Laura were strapping themselves into pilot’s and co-pilot’s chairs.

“Ok, can you hear me?” Forge was asking through the transponder.

“Yeah, Forge,” Marie muttered.

“In two minutes, we quite literally raise the roof,” he said.

“Super lame joke, Forge,” Laura murmured. “You lost two X-points for that one.”

“What the hell are X-points? How many do I have now?” Forge asked through the transponder nervously. 

“Jesus, Forge, it was a joke. You have eleven thousand. You happy?” Laura said through a smirk and a glance back at Marie. 

“Copy that,” he said back, and for a moment there was radio silence before he added, “I’ve always wanted to say that.” 

Laura rolled her eyes, then stared at her mother more seriously. 

“You ready?” Laura asked Marie.

“Are  _ you?”  _ she shot back at the younger mutant. 

“I’m just trying to remind myself I  _ wanted  _ this,” Laura said. “Now it all feels...a little too real. And kinda fucking scary,” she finished. Marie smiled at her, before flipping on the various old switches, then typing in the codes Forge had given her to the temporary projectors strapped to the cockpit.

“Ok. Rogue? Roof disguised as a basketball court or whatever the thingamajig is called is now open. You’ve been cleared for take off,” Forge said.

“Quit it with the cheesy cliches, Forge,” Laura grumbled, this time more nervously. 

“Copy,” Marie said, hands once more gripping the wheel of the plane. In her mind, every memory of Marie’s experience flying the jet was layered over one another, weaving themselves together into a cohesive whole. 

_ Ok. Thrusters on. Navigation working. Defense shields up so they won’t see us. Am I forgetting anything?  _ Marie asked Logan.

_ No. Just...take her up, baby,  _ Logan said quietly, and then they were hovering above the ground, before Marie pulled the helm upward and the jet quickly ascended into the sky. Around them, the dull blue hue of night fading away into morning as the sun was appearing just over the horizon as the jet hovered above the school for a few moments, before Marie leaned into the helm, and suddenly they were moving at impossible speeds, rocketing forward across upstate New York. 

_ Holy shit! I forgot how...fucking exhilarating this is. Whew!  _ Marie laughed inwardly.

_ Uh huh. Exhilarating,  _ Logan mumbled. He didn’t have the capacity to feel sick anymore, but it still threw him off kilter, as the knowledge the ground was tens of thousands of feet below them had his consciousness feeling queasy all the same.

And then, he realized he wasn’t alone. Logan noticed it before Marie did, most likely because Marie had all her energy focused on flying the goddamn plane, but it was still as clear as day. The sharp intake of Laura’s breath. The way she was gripping the arm rests tightly. How loud her heartbeat was in her chest. Trying to control her pulse by steadily breathing out through her nose. The fact that her eyes were goddamn shut. 

_ Fuck,  _ Logan thought to himself, more than anyone else. He mentally sighed, and then muttered something to Marie.

_ Slow your speed and lower your altitude a bit, kid,  _ he said. 

_ Why?  _ Marie asked, and it was obvious she was having a bit of fun, but then she was picking up on the same things Logan had, and she glanced over to Laura with concern. 

_ Oh no. Oh dear,  _ Marie inwardly muttered, and the plane was instantly slowing as Marie realized what was wrong. As they began to fly at more normal speeds, Laura finally snapped her eyes open. There was a sheen of sweat on her brow, and she looked fucking miserable as hell.

“Oh god,” Laura muttered, after a few heavy breaths. “I think I hate this.”

_ God fucking damn it,  _ Logan was saying. _ I had money on that. Didn’t I have money on that? _

_ Well, she’s like you. In pretty much every which way. Like you said, ‘down to her taste in women.’ I’m not surprised,  _ Marie was saying before Laura interrupted their mental dialogue.

“He-he fucking  _ warned me,”  _ she was stammering.

“What are you saying,  _ amada?”  _ Marie asked.

_ “ _ He- he told me….” Laura muttered, before stopping abruptly, breathing in quickly and managing to wipe the sweat out of her eyes.

“Told you what?” Marie pressed, glancing back over to Laura with concern. Meanwhile, their daughter had her eyes shut tightly yet again as she continued to shakily explain what she meant.

“He told me… ‘Some things, kid, aren’t meant to be in the air,’” Laura stammered. “‘You and I are one of them.’ That’s what he said. I- I didn’t believe him then, but  _ now I do.”  _

_ You told her that?  _ Marie asked.

_ Heh. Yeah, I think I did. Way early on. Still fuckin’ true, though. _

_ Jesus. I can’t take either of you anywhere,  _ Marie grumbled, already turning the jet around to go home. No need to torture anyone any longer. The jet flew, and flew well, and that’s all that mattered. 

  
  
  


\---

The sun was beating down on the sore muscles of his back as he hurled the axe into another block of wood. He had shed his wifebeater an hour or so before, just in jeans and boots now, and he could feel the sweat dripping off his body. It was hard work, brutal work, even, and if he hadn’t had the ability, or at least the illusion, to heal, he’d have blisters on his fucking hands. But he had wanted this. He had wanted to work. To  _ do  _ something. This was part of the inner world Marie had created for them both he was only beginning to understand. She had given him more than just the capacity to love her. It was also the capacity to truly feel  _ alive. _

Sweat. Blood. The smells of the forest on the late summer breeze. The way the light hit the lake beyond. The world around them was slowly growing, the harder Marie worked at building it, and sometimes it felt so fucking real Logan wasn’t sure what the difference was anymore. The pain, even the way the adamantium coating the bones in his hands grew stiff after too much work, was so intimately detailed, he would probably never be sure how Marie had pulled any of this off. Just then, the wind picked up, and Logan was reminded of why he should hurry the fuck up.

Butter and rosemary. Garlic. Thyme. She was cookin’ something in there, something that smelled amazing, and his stomach once more realistically growled in hunger. One of Logan’s favorite things about this fucking fantasy land, other than the goddamn sex, was the  _ food.  _ The ability to taste. To drink. To  _ savor.  _ Marie could practically summon any sort of ingredient she needed, as it was all in her head, but with her careful skill, she had made everything seem real, and she spent the time, and the effort of cooking with all the love and craft she did in the real world. 

Logan wasn’t surprised she was cooking. It was one of their longer stints, Logan knew that. After the ordeal with the Blackbird, all the members of the X-Men had been plotting what their first “official” mission might be. There had been long nights and hard hours, and Marie, finally, had requested to Laura she take a couple of days off. Laura had been gracious, of course reminding Marie she didn’t need her approval, but Laura’s opinion mattered, all the same. Especially since their brief falling-out. So Marie had been meditating, still in four-hour intervals, for the past day and a half. And she and Logan had took advantage of the respite. 

Now though, as the evening came on and the sun had started to dim, he deftly settled the axe beside the wooden tree stump he used for a chopping block, collecting a few pieces of firewood to bring inside. He always built the fire; it was his job, whereas Marie always cooked. They did dishes together, as they had back when he really was alive, both at Xavier’s and again, for as long as he had been able, at Hay River. Although, during the latter existence, Laura had helped too. Logan mildly frowned at the thought, before shaking it off and gathering the rest of the wood in his arms. 

As he kicked open the door, the amazing smells grew tenfold, hitting him squarely in the nose. He swayed on the spot for a moment, as Marie whipped around, done up in a sexy little apron, and he couldn’t help but growl in approval even as he plopped the wood down by the hearth. He could feel her eyes on him as he stood back up, and he smirked a bit in satisfaction.

“Gonna take a shower,” he murmured to her. “Do I got time before dinner?”

“Y-yes,” she managed to respond through a flustered blush, although, even as something was threatening to bubble over, her eyes never left his chest. 

“Hrm,” Logan growled contently, moving over with heavy boots to kiss the top of her head and rest a heavy hand around her waist. She sucked in a breath, and he once more rumbled in pleasure.

“Ten minutes,” he muttered, before stalking off towards the bathroom.

Hot water on aching muscles. The way the steam billowed up, clouding the little bathroom in a warm fog. The way the cold tile felt under his feet as he left the shower, stark naked, before throwing a towel over his head to dry his hair off. He took a second after that, staring at his face in the mirror. His beard was growing in; he’d need to shave. His hair, too, was a bit longer than it was when she first brought him here, although he didn’t know how the fuck that was possible. Choosing to do something about his face, at least, he searched through the bathroom cupboard to find, of course, a bottle of shaving cream and a straight razor, just like the kind he’d had back at Westchester.  _ She had thought of everything.  _ Smirking a bit, he plucked the materials from the bathroom cupboard, and lathered up. Carefully, and with better precision than he had had in those last few years of his sorry life due to shaking limbs and aching hands, he shaved the way he had always done before. Like no time had passed. Like nothing had happened. 

After he’d washed up, he’d moved to the bedroom, pulling on a fresh wifebeater and jeans, but nothing else. He quickly then stalked back into the main room, where Marie was just plating up dinner. Roast pork and garlic potatoes, green beans that from the smell of it had been simmering with a hambone, and thick, fluffy biscuits meant to be drizzled in honey.

“Jesus Christ, woman,” he muttered, leaning on the door frame, staring at her, as she looked up to him. “Smells real good.”

“Yeah?” she asked through a blush, before moving to untie her apron.

“Hey,” he murmured, stalking forth to close the space between them. “Let me.”

Slowly, with warm, heavy hands, he gently untied the back of the apron clinging to Marie’s slim neck, and then again he undid the knot at her waist. He then turned her around, so she was facing him, and she looked up to him with a surprised smile.

“You shaved,” she said through a grin, moving at once to run her hand across his bare chin, but scruffy sides of his jaw. His signature look.

“Didn’t know I needed to. No idea my hair could fucking grow in this place,” he muttered, cupping Maries own face for a moment. She leaned into his touch, before she grabbed his arm and tugged him forward.

“Come on. Before the food gets cold,” she said.

Over dinner, the conversation had been rich and sprawling. He had made her laugh, several times over, which always did something for his ego. The way she clutched her wine glass, or giggled over a forkful of potato, were the intimate details of this life together that never, at least now, went unnoticed by Logan. They talked about Johnny Cash and which Stones album was the best and what was bound to happen in the new book Marie was currently reading back in Westchester. They reminisced about Charles and Scott, and the time Bobby almost set the kitchen on fire. They talked about Hay River,too. About Kay, who had passed a handful of years back peacefully in her sleep, who they had held a small service for at the lakehouse. They talked about how much they sometimes missed Canada, and what chance the Calgary Flames had in hockey this year. They talked about Laura, too, although a bit more sparingly.

“She’ll make her way,” Logan was saying. His plate had long since become empty, and he moved quietly to grab Marie’s wine glass to refill it for her.

“I know. I just...I wish I could help her...move along,” Marie was saying quietly.

“Kid, you can’t live life for her,” he murmured, filling up Marie’s glass with more of a dry red, and then grabbing her empty plate, Marie murmuring a quick “thanks” in gratitude. 

Marie didn’t respond to this last remark, instead, standing herself, moving over with her wine glass to the record player in the corner. 

“Davis or Ellington?” she said.

“Ellington,” Logan offered, and then the slow jazz music started to play, as she looked up at him once more.

“Should build a fire,” he muttered, as he walked over to her. 

“No. Not yet. Just...sit with me for a while,” Marie said, grabbing his hand and leading him to the cozy loveseat. Quietly, they settled in, her head leaning against his shoulder and his arm around her frame. For a while, no one talked, and they simply sat there, listening to the thrumming night around them as he stroked her hair gently and she listened to the sound of the rise and fall of his chest. After a while, though, he felt her grin against him, and he pulled back, a confused look on his face.

“What?” he said. 

“She was so  _ god damn  _ terrified,” Marie grinned, and Logan could feel himself chuckle a bit in response. 

“Heh. Poor thing. She’s waited for that thing to be in the air for so  _ fucking long.  _ And what did she say? ‘I think I hate this?’” Logan muttered through a shake of his head, as he reached for his own glass of whiskey.

“She’s  _ so  _ like you, it’s scary,” she murmured into her wine glass. 

“Maybe so,” Logan muttered through a sip of whiskey. “Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“It’s a good thing,” Marie said, kissing his arm slightly, before adding, “well, except maybe when it comes to flying.”

“Hrmmph,” Logan muttered. “Again, I wasn’t all that surprised. Shoulda warned her.”

At this, Marie frowned a little, tucking her legs up under her lap. 

“Are you really gonna keep your promise then? About talking to her more?” Marie asked.

Logan sighed, before downing the rest of the whiskey and setting the empty glass on the table.

“Hell, kid. I’m gonna try. It’s not the same, though. You know? It’ll never be the same,” he muttered, and he heard his voice fall a little.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t try,” she whispered to him, curling up to him a bit more. The conversation once more dwindled. The record had long since finished on the player, but they stayed like that for a long while. So long that Marie’s eyes had begun to flutter shut.

“Yer tired, kid,” he finally murmured, noticing she was beginning to go in and out of consciousness. And every time she did, the sounds outside stopped, the light felt different, and Logan felt his world shudder just slightly as her concentration was divided.

“Hmm?” she purred, turning inward toward his chest a bit more.

“Yer tired,” he said again, and that’s when she truly did open her eyes, yawning slightly, sitting up a bit more. 

“So let’s fuck each other senseless, and then sleep,” she said through a sleepy smile 

“I mean  _ for real, _ ” he said quietly. She sighed then, realizing of course what they both knew deep down. She was breaking their rule; she had been meditating far longer than she should have.

“Kiss me,” she murmured, leaning into him a bit more.

“Kid…” he said. But she was already moving to straddle him, and he growled approvingly. His hands slid over her waist, already underneath her shirt, and for a moment he simply obliged her, taking her mouth in his own. She moaned into the kiss, and his grip on her hips tightened.

“Yer  _ mine. _ You know that?” he growled into her ear after he tore away, letting her breathe for a moment.

“ _ Yes,”  _ she said through a gasp, just as he’d moved to take one of her nipples into his mouth through her sheer blouse, sucking hard, rolling it back and forth between his tongue until it pebbled. 

“ _ God. Logan,”  _ she breathed as she arched her back, and he growled as he licked up her chest where the shirt ended and her skin began, all the while relishing the feeling of her hips rolling against him as he slid his tongue along her collarbone, before gently nipping her neck. 

She moaned again, and that’s when he made up his mind.

“We do this, and then you end the meditation,” he finally murmured into her skin.

She only moaned, and he stopped touching her, save for bringing a hand to her chin to look her in the eye.

“Look at me,” he said. And she did, the melting chocolate brown of her irses staring directly into his own. 

“We do this, and then you stop meditating. And you sleep for real. You understand me?” he growled, and she began nodding fervently.

“Yes.  _ Yes.  _ Fuck, baby. Just...I need….” she said, rocking her hips hard against him.

“What? You want more?” he breathed into her ear, hand already fiddling with the button of her jeans.

“Fuck.  _ Yes, _ ” she hissed, and he quickly flipped them over so she was under him on the loveseat. They barely both fit, but it didn’t matter, because he was rocking against her, hard as could be through his fucking jeans, and she moaned once more, threading her hands over taut muscles, under his shirt, nails threatening to claw into his skin. He kissed her again, more harshly this time.

“ _ Bedroom _ ,” she finally managed to say, and he growled, easily sweeping her off the couch, cradling her in his arms as she giggled slightly. He set her down on the bed, and proceeded to strip her of her clothes, so she was lying there, naked below him, despite the fact he was still fully clothed.

“What-” she began to ask.

“Just let me look at ya, kid,” he mumbled, before leaning down on the bed, lying beside her, gently moving a hand up and over every curve, every line, every scar. She was shivering, but still he didn’t relent. He relished the feel of her skin, how soft it was, even delicate in some places. She had stopped aging in her mid-forties, and was as beautiful as ever, but she still had fine wrinkles, at her elbows, the creases of her eyes, along her neck line. He knew it bothered her sometimes, if only because of how  _ young  _ he looked. But he also knew, deep down, that he was himself, the self he had been with her, at his weakest, his oldest, at his most vulnerable. And he hoped she realized, hoped she  _ knew, _ he was still that man, as much as we was anything else. Slowly, his hand settled on the plane of her stomach, frowning as fingers ran along a red scar near her belly button.

“You were alone,” he finally mumbled, looking up to her quietly. It was one of his greatest regrets. Not being there for her then.

“So were you,” she murmured back to him, placing her hand on his abdomen, in the place where the angriest scar he had carried, the one he been given after failing to save Charles at the farmhouse, had angrily bared itself late in his life. It no longer was there, but he knew he still wore the guilt, the shame, that had accompanied it. He said nothing, only frowned a little, before she turned to him slightly.

“Hey,” she murmured, bringing him back to the moment through a gentle kiss. “I want you to use them.”

He pulled back a bit, tilting his head quizzically. 

“You know,” she said through a smirk. 

He frowned instantly, murmuring a, “I don't want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. You  _ can’t.  _ Not here,” she whispered. 

He sighed, before extending them on one hand, and ran the dull edge of them, with careful precision, over the length of her body. She shuddered, breathed, gasped as the oddly warm metal made contact with her naked skin. It was something, back in the real world, they didn’t do often, very much like when she turned on her skin for him during sex, but there was something about it, about acknowledging each other’s power, that felt far more intimate sometimes than just sex alone. As he idly drew the metal over her body, she simply let herself feel it for a long while, before she gently took her own hand to run her fingers over the dull edges of each blade, and he sharply inhaled.

“ _ Fuck  _ that feels real,” he breathed. She only grinned at him, sitting up more, to massage the place where the claws extended, wiping a drip of blood away with her finger, before moving upward, practically to their end point, before moving back down again.

“Can’t...take much more of this,” he murmured through closed eyes, and then he was sheathing them, and she was stripping him of the rest of his clothes. He growled, moving to hover over her, the animal hungry inside of him. Hungry to see her like this, to be outside of her like this, to  _ take  _ her like this. 

He easily seated himself inside her, as wet and as ready as she was, but it still came as surprise to her. She gasped, moaned, gripped his arms tightly as he pulled out and once more drove himself within her, filling her mind, filling her body, satisfying her in the only way he could. The only way he knew how. 

It was hot and wild and sticky. It was an onslaught to all his senses. In seconds, they were both sweat-drenched as he drove into her hard, lost in his own pleasure, as she scratched at the skin of his naked back until it hurt and he bit down on her hard once again to put her in her place. She screamed out in a mixture of pain and pleasure, and only a handful of minutes later he roared as came, and she held onto him like hell, riding out her own orgasm, quaking underneath him. He shuddered as he struggled to catch his breath, and they both simply existed for long moments, before he settled his forehead against her own. 

“I love you,” she murmured to him.

“I know,” he said quietly. “I do too, kid.”

“I miss you,” she said and when he pulled back, he noticed her eyes were glazed in tears.

“I know,” he said again, lifting a heavy hand to brush a way a strand of platinum hair strewn across her face. 

She said nothing as she looked at him, and he sighed, moving his weight off her. She lay nestled on top of the covers for a moment, before he once more laid down beside her, continuing to stroke her hair gently.

“Time to end it, Marie,” he muttered.

“ _ No,”  _ she said firmly.

“We had a deal,” Logan growled lowly. “End it, and get some real sleep.” She was was frowning, blinking back the nascent beginning of tears again, even as he felt himself lose his body, lose the touch and the feel and the taste of her, as once more the darkened vision of Marie’s real room, very much devoid of Logan, came back to her, to him, to them both.

“God fucking  _ damn it,”  _ she whispered tearfully to the dark. 

_ Go to bed, darlin’,  _ is all he could say.

_ “ _ Watch over me _? _ ” she barely murmured as she turned over, coiled up in a ball, alone in a bed where the other side, the right side, was cold. Empty. Forever vacant.

_ Always, kid,  _ he said, but the world was already going black and everything was growing small and she was leaving him again, like each night when she slept, like every night, torn away from her, left alone with his thoughts, left alone in the dark. 

**\--**

 

**_Two weeks later_ **

**_November 2043_ **

 

_ No. _

_ Come on! Why not? _

_ No way in fucking hell.  _

_ Sugar- _

_ -Fucker was around for like five weeks and I had to threaten him with violence on four fucking occasions for him to stay the fuck away from you. _

_ Sugar, that was twenty years ago.  _

_ You think that goddamn slippery bastard’s changed? _

_ We could use him. All we have are a handful of young mutants who never saw the old days. He went on missions with us, even if he didn’t stick around in the end.  _

_ Hell. No.  _

“So... what’s wrong?” Laura was asking through a frown. Mother and daughter were currently sitting on the recently-renovated veranda on this cool, brisk November morning. It was the same place that so many years ago Logan and Rogue had sat, often sharing lunch and the occasional beer. It was just before dawn, and Marie was donned in a thick sweater, Laura in her usual jacket, despite Marie’s suggestion she wear something warmer.  _ This is balmy compared to November in Hay River,  _ Laura had said, and Marie had agreed. The temperature was hovering a little over freezing, but the sun was bright and warm as it started rising from the treeline further beyond. It was still one of Logan’s favorite spots, and he was happy to have it back, at least in some faint way. 

It had become something of a ritual, the two of them taking their coffee outside in the morning, their checking in with each other often evolving into shop-talk. Today, the conversation swirled around the first thing to do with the plane, which apparently was Marie and Logan going to pick up some old gumbo cajun who back in the day had been a pain in Logan’s ass for weeks on end, because the greasy fuck had been far too flirtatious with Marie.

Putting it bluntly, Logan had objections.

_ You know what?  _ Marie muttered to Logan.  _ Why don’t you tell her? You promised to talk to her more. Be my guest. I’m sick of explaining your pointless ramblings,  _ Marie grumbled.

_ Fine,  _ Logan growled, and he could feel Marie retreat slightly, and he had access to her voice.

In the weeks since Laura had returned from the city, he had been trying, little by little, to talk to his daughter directly more often. It was always going to feel strange, and it would never feel entirely  _ natural _ , but all three had agreed that Laura hearing Logan talk to her outright might help them all heal a little in ways that they otherwise couldn’t. Logan was realizing, quickly, that Laura had been hurt by that decision early on to draw a stubborn line in the sand that Marie keep her autonomy at all possible costs.  Laura had called him a coward. At the time, he was blind with rage over the insult. But as Logan forced himself to confront what she had said, often in the long hours of the night when Marie was sleeping, he wondered if there wasn’t a layer of profound truth in his daughter's biting words. Maybe he had been ashamed. Ashamed he hadn’t been there. Ashamed he hadn’t been able to protect her. Ashamed he hadn’t been able to stop himself from dying. 

Regardless, he had been trying to talk to her now, as difficult as it sometimes was. 

“Laura, it’s Logan,” he said.

“ _ Papá _ ,” Laura said, tucking a strand of long dark hair behind her ear and smiling at him in the morning sun. Usually the look on Laura’s face when he used Marie’s voice to talk to her was one of confusion, yearning, and sometimes even amusement, and today it seemed thoroughly to be the latter. 

“Wipe that smirk off yer face. You wanted to talk to me more? This is what you get. And you can’t have him here,” Logan muttered, as Laura took a sip of coffee through another grin.

“Have who here?” she played with him, kicking her feet out to longue a little more leisurely on the stairs leading up to the veranda.

“That fuckin’ asshole Gambit. For some goddamn reason yer mother thinks it’s a fucking amazing idea to have the slimy bastard around.”

“What’s so bad about him?” Laura asked, still obviously amused as she cocked a brow. 

“Well, he was part of the Thieves Guild for one thing,” Logan muttered. 

“And?” Laura asked, seeming unimpressed.

“And he’s a fucking cheat. And he was sweet on yer mother,” he growled. 

_ He was not “sweet” on me,   _ Marie protested from inside her mind. Laura was grinning widely now, obviously enjoying every fuckin’ minute of this pointless conversation.

“Is that true mom?” Laura teased through a wide grin. 

“I told ya to wipe that smirk off yer face. She’s denying it because that woman can’t tell if someone was flirtin’ with her, even if they were screamin’ their intentions in her face.”

_ Hey!  _ Marie protested.  _ That’s bullshit! Yes I can! _

_ Years, kid. I dropped hints for years I wanted ya. Went right over yer fucking head.  _

_ How could I know? I was young. And you’re talking about the other Marie. And my Logan didn’t do jack shit. Just snuck me beer and called me “kid” and kept driving off on his goddamn Harley every three months. And I know from your memories you did the same damn thing. Talk about mixed messages. _

“Mixed messages my ass,” Logan grumbled, and realized he had used Marie’s voice to do so. Laura shot them both a look.

“Er, sorry. Not used to this talking shit. Anyway, there’s no way in fucking hell I’m letting that bastard live under our roof. I’ll kill him,” he used Marie’s voice to growl, and that’s when his daughter stifled a bewildered laugh.

_ She thinks we’re a walking comedy act. _

_ Well, we kinda are,  _ Marie mentally grumbled. 

“Dad… you can’t kill anybody,” Laura retorted through another grin, 

“I’ll make yer mother fucking kill him,” he grumbled.

“You understand how crazy you sound, yeah?” Laura said through a roll of her eyes and another sip from her mug.

“Yer mom’s got claws. I’ll make her stab the fucker,” Logan snarled, And that’s when Laura nearly spit out her coffee, barely choking down the swallow she had taken. 

“Wait, wait,... _ what?”  _ Laura finally asked when she caught her breath. “Mom...has  _ claws?” _

It was true. It had been true from the moment Marie had absorbed him. After things had settled a bit, as some of her grief had subsided, Logan had been curious about that and asked her to check. When Marie absorbed someone permanently, she acquired  _ all  _ of their powers, so Logan figured she had ‘em. She’d been nervous that first time she’d popped the claws, and had drunk about half a bottle of whiskey before she’d done it, but he’d coached her through it. And, lo and behold, three claws, minus the adamantium, on each hand. Marie had been horrified, first because of the constant pain that was so familiar to Logan it almost felt  _ good _ and so foreign to Marie the woman almost fainted, and then just because the fact they were  _ there _ . And when Logan had tried to calm the woman down, calling the claws “a useful addition,” she had raked his ass over the coals. 

_ Cat’s out of the bag,  _ Logan mentally said to Marie.

_ I’m going to kill you for that one, sugar. Right when we get back to the cabin. I’m going to fuck you one last time, and when you pass out and start snoring like you  _ always do  _ after sex, I’m going to strangle your mental consciousness with a pillow. Then dump your dead pretend body in the creek outside,  _ Marie was threatening inside her mind.

_ I’ll enjoy every minute of that, darlin’,  _ he shot back before talking to Laura once more. 

“Yep. She never pops ‘em, but when she absorbed me, she got all of me. I’ve been tryin’ to teach her to use ‘em, for as much as she’s been going on and on about bein’ ‘battle-ready’ and shit, but she’s being stubborn about it,” Logan muttered.

_ They hurt!  _ Marie protested. 

“She’s whining about it hurtin,” Logan said, and Laura rolled her eyes although she was still grinning.  “Maybe  _ you  _ can help her learn to use them.”

_ I’m turning 60 goddamn years old this month. I’m tired. I’m not “learning” about using powers that aren’t even mine,  _ Marie was hissing to Logan.

_ Kid. You’re Rogue. Learning how to use other mutants’ powers is yer fucking M.O. And don’t dare talk about being tired. Come back and whine to me when you hit 200,  _ Logan mentally mumbled.

_ God, I hope I don’t live that long,  _ Marie murmured.  _ I don’t think I can take bickering with you for another hundred years.  _

_ Good thing ya love me, darlin’,  _ Logan teased.

_ Yeah. Good thing,  _ she grumbled frustratingly.

“Well, tell Mom she can manage if somehow you and I managed,” Laura was saying, glancing down at her own hands as she set her mug down on one of the steps. “Mom, we  _ will  _ talk about this more at some point.  But for right now,  _ Papá,  _ what you don’t understand is that this LeBeau dude sold illegal parts to Forge, parts that helped us get our computers back online, and I think he knows what’s going on here. He wants to meet with us in a remote, secure location, away from Westchester. I don’t care if he steals for a living. He’s interested in what we’re doing here. He’s supposed to be an omega-level mutant. And if he helped with X-Men missions, even if it was off and on, that’s  _ invaluable.  _ You  _ know  _ that. And it’s just a meeting. He’s not moving in or anything,” Laura shrugged off Logan’s concern with a wave of her hand. 

“That omega-level son of a bitch can go fuck himself,” Logan growled again with Marie’s voice, and then Laura returned the growl in frustration.

“Ok. Please go away. You’re not helping anymore. Give Marie her voice back,” Laura grumbled, pulling her jacket tighter to her as the morning breeze kicked up a bit.

“I thought this is what you wanted.  _ To talk more,”  _ he retorted.

“Not when you’re gonna be a bastard and pout about shit you can’t control,”  Laura shot back and Logan inwardly growled a bit, before settling back into Marie’s mind.

“Sorry,” Marie said as she came back to herself, crossing her arms against her chest, pulling her sweater closer to her.

“He really hates this guy,” Laura muttered. 

“Yeah,” Marie muttered.

“So….like did this Gambit put the moves on you at some point?” Laura asked through a grin. 

“Oh no,” Marie replied. “I was already with your father by then. Remy was just… uhh...you know. Charming.  _ Suave,”  _ she said. “For the whole five weeks he was there Logan was stalking and stomping about the place. Those poor kids in his fight club probably suffered the most. He worked everyone harder. All because Remy was being nice to me.”

_ “Nice to you?” That grimy son of a bitch was all over ya. Always a step behind. Pullin’ out chairs and openin’ doors like a idiot, eyes on yer ass the entire time. _

_ Oh come on. He knew we were together. And what’s wrong with opening doors for people? Some might simply call that chivalry. Or decent manners,  _ Marie inwardly huffed.  _ Something that you, sugar, have been in short supply of over the years. I blame it on your lack of southern upbringing. _

_ “Chivalry” my fucking ass. He wanted ya. I already had to deal with Bobby for fuckin’ years. The only good fucking thing about that cajun was he didn’t stick around for long.  _

“Jesus,” Marie was saying out loud. “He’s cursing up a storm. Sometimes, I wish I could turn him off.”

Laura laughed at this, and Logan only grumbled, choosing to dejectedly sit back a bit more and simply watch the conversation between mother and daughter play out, seeing as he had probably lost this fucking battle. 

“So now that that’s settled, you two leave tomorrow,” she muttered into her mug.

“ _ Excuse me?”  _ Marie asked.

“Well, three I guess. Rictor’s gonna watch your six if this guy tries to pull any shit.”

_ Ask her where the hell she plans to be during all this,  _ Logan muttered.

“And why aren’t you joining us?” Marie asked through even eyes.

“Final work on the left wing of the mansion is set to be completed in the next couple of days,” Laura said through a stretch of her arms and a yawn. “I’m drowning in paperwork.”

_ She’s avoiding getting on that damn jet,  _ Logan quickly hissed to Marie. Meanwhile, Laura was still talking.

“And besides  _ you’re the one  _ he was apparently ‘sweet’ on. You’re more likely to get a more honest story about what he wants from us.”

“Good grief,” Marie muttered. 

Laura just shrugged her shoulders in response. “It’s true.”

“And...so...where is this meeting happening? Where did he contact you from?” Marie said through an arch of her brow. 

Laura frowned slightly, before drinking another sip of coffee.  “Dad’s gonna hate this answer, but…. _ Mexico _ .”

“Oh dear,” Marie murmured.

_ Fucking hell,  _ Logan growled.  _ This shit just keeps getting better and better.  _

“I’m arranging for the jet to land near an abandoned hangar in the desert. I’ve given him coordinates for a nearby bar. This is supposed to be a quick sort of thing,” Laura said. Marie nodded, a little lost in thought about it all, and barely heard Laura ask her next question.

“So...claws?” Laura asked through another smirk.

“We’re not talking about it,” Marie mumbled.

“I thought we didn’t keep secrets from each other,” Laura teased. Logan could feel Marie raise a brow in skepticism at that, and he couldn’t help but inwardly chuckle as he read Marie’s thoughts before she spoke then out loud. 

“That right? Because, honey, one whiff and I know you’re lying about how many women revolve through that apartment of yours in New York. Let’s not fool each other,” Marie shot back through a grin and another sip from her mug. Logan watched as his daughter's mouth fell open slightly in surprise before she closed it, immediately flushing red in embarrassment.

“Uh, yeah. Uh, let me get you more coffee,” Laura finally said, before nabbing Marie’s mostly empty mug and stalking off inside. 

_ You showed her,  _ Logan said through a mental chuckle.

_ Oh, don’t even start with me. You’re still in the doghouse, mister. _

_ Still gonna dump me in a creek behind the cabin? _

_ Yes. But only after I have angry, mindless, rough sex with you.  _

_ Like I said, kid. Looking forward to every minute.  _

  
  



	7. Public Relations

**Chapter 7: Public Relations**

**_Westchester, November 2043_ **

 

When she turned three, they locked her up. Always alone, usually in the dark. She remembered tear stains on the single flat pillow. She remembered banging, kicking, scratching on the door. She remembered nightmares. She dreamt of monsters. She dreamt of animals she had never seen before. She dreamt of claws and feathers and wings and teeth and bones. She remembered sleeping in a little ball, hands against her head, the only thing she knew to do to try to get them to stop. They never did.

When she turned six, they started hurting her. She learned the word “healing factor” early on, and that hers had “manifested” early. For some reason, unlike the others, her body always put itself back together again. Each day, they would invent new methods to test its ability to do so. She was stabbed, shot, beaten senseless. Sometimes, after the worst kinds of torture, a faceless nurse would slip into her room, and hold her head in her lap, as Laura sobbed. It was a small kindness, and Laura would cry until she fell asleep or until the woman could no longer stay.  _ Dolor  _ was her reality. _ Dolor _ , the thing she knew best.

When she turned nine, she began hearing things. A voice, mainly, growling like a monster in her ear. At first, she was scared of it, and when it talked to her, she cried. It told her to stop crying. It told her to get up. To face another day.  _ Abrazar el dolor _ , it would hiss in her ear.  _ El dolor te hace saber que sigues vivo. _ At first, she called it  _ el monstruo _ , but it didn’t like that name. Then, she called it  _ el animal _ . It didn’t protest, so  _ el animal _ is what it became.

They taught her math and how to read and write, but mostly, they taught her how to kill. The easiest way to take down a target. Which arteries are easiest and most effective to sever. She learned why soon after.

When they came out the first time, she screamed. They had delivered a gas into her cell to make her enraged, and then there were bones jutting out of her hands and feet, blood everywhere, her skin trying rapidly to heal around the claws and failing. Sometimes, even when _ las garras _ were not extended, it still hurt. She would clutch her small hands together to ease the pain, like praying, like she saw the nurses do. _ Reza, niña. Rezar a Dios. _ That’s what they would say. She did. She prayed to God. She prayed to the  _ madre _ she never knew. She always asked for the same thing. She asked to not be what she was: an animal. 

When she turned ten, they put metal inside her. After that, she stopped asking for things from god. 

 

_ \-- _

_ She was thrown back inside the cinder block cell after they had cracked her skull and broken her ribs. She was still coughing up blood from where she knew her rib had punctured her lung, and she struggled to breathe, on her hands and knees, waiting, always waiting, for her body to repair itself. Then it did, forcibly snapping her rib back into place. Her head too, bone mending itself. She cried out, snarled, screamed, and then painfully she stood. She was covered in blood, dripping in red… and they were there. Coming again for her... _

Laura gasped as she shot up in her bed. She growled, on her feet in a half a second, whipping to the left and to the right, trying to find the threat, claws extended, blood dripping to the floor.

And then her senses came back to her, slowly, as she realized she was staring at her room in Westchester. Paperwork scattered about her desk. A half-empty glass of wine on the nightstand.  _ War and Peace,  _ half-read, propped open on the bed. Laura could do nothing but breathe steadily for a moment, staring at the room in front of her, before she was able to retract her claws,  gritting her teeth as the metal slid back into her body. It’s then she realized there were tears in her eyes, and she growled, hastily wiping them away with a bloodied hand. 

“ _ Motherfucker,”  _ she cursed to herself, finally moving from the spot she had planted herself in. Her breathing was still unsteady as she flipped on a light switch and stumbled into the bathroom, thrusting her hands under the warm water to clean them. Slowly, she watched the blood drain into the white basin, and she closed her eyes for a moment, sighing.

She hadn’t dreamt of the lab in months. They were typically awful, terribly realistic re-creations of the things she had experienced there, things she buried down deep. On a rare occasion, she would discuss her past with Rictor, before she met her father. But often, the fact that her childhood was stolen from her was something she didn’t think about. She just couldn’t. 

She glanced up at her reflection, and grimaced. She looked terrible. There were dark circles under eyes, and her hair was everywhere.  _ Also too long. She’d need to cut it soon.  _ She was thinner than she wanted to be, and realized she would need to be better about lifting in the newly renovated gym. She growled again, splashing some water onto her face, and sighed through her hands.

It was 4:05am. It felt like it was always four in the morning when she was torn out of a nightmare. Laura growled, threading her fingers in her hair to quickly braid it. She wouldn't be sleeping anymore tonight. If she was being honest with herself, she was mildly afraid to. 

Quitely, she dressed, intent on the gym. Marie, Logan, and Rictor had left the evening before for Mexico, and the mansion was even more eerily silent than normal without them here. Skipping the newly purchased exercise equipment and string of treadmills, she headed to the mats on the other side of the floor. She had come down here barefoot for a reason.

She breathed out, wringing her hands as she did so, bowed silently, then stepped on the mat. Wanting to still her racing mind, she quietly began to  first work through  _ ten no kata omote.  _ She envisioned her feet firmly planted on the ground as she moved from  _ musubi dachi  _ to  _ hachi ji dachi  _ and then focused her energy as she lunged forward right fist extended into  _ chudon oi zuki.  _ She moved back and forth, switching arms through the poses, desperately trying to align body with brain once more. She hadn’t practiced basic  _ kata  _ in months, and she was worse off for it. It was something she learned from her father, to find peace, to find balance. 

From there, she moved through much more sophisticated karate sequences, mind blank as her muscles remembered for her. She was sweating after a while, quickly counting in Japanese. She wasn’t sure how long she had kept at it, until a voice rang out against the far end of the gym, and she stopped mid-sequence, breathing heavily.

_ “On'nanoko o osoku,”  _ Dani said from across the way.  _ Slow down, girl.  _ Laura looked up to see the tall, lean woman standing in the doorway, donned in athletic gear, feet also barefoot. Laura threw her a smile.

“Couldn’t sleep again?” Dani said, strolling over to the mat, but not yet stepping on it.

“No. What time is it?” Laura asked, wiping the sweat from her brow.

“A little after seven,” Dani said.

“Fuck,” Laura muttered, realizing she had been at it for over three hours.

“Still mad about the jet?” Dani asked through a grin. She was referring to Laura’s horrific realization that flying at supersonic speeds was not something she necessarily enjoyed. Laura frowned a little, thoroughly uninterested in explaining the terribly realistic dream about how the scientists and guards used to torture her as a child and  _ that’s  _ why she was working through her  _ kata _ , and instead nodded. It was a half-lie, but it would have to do.

“I can’t believe it made me feel sick.  _ Nothing  _ makes me feel sick,” Laura muttered, going through a round of arm stretches as she did so.

“Yeah, well, welcome to reality. You ever ride a rollercoaster?” Dani asked. Laura frowned.

“No,” Laura muttered. 

“Then don’t,” Dani murmured through a smile. “So what’s on the docket today, with half our team missing?”

“You’re not gonna like it. Paperwork. I need to sign a contract with the mason. I know Derek’s been after my ass to sign a few checks, too” Laura grumbled.

“He’s too polite to demand anything,” Dani smiled. “At least from you. Still though, despite helping Derek with his gallant financial efforts and duties, I still can’t believe you wanted to stay back and sign checks instead of go on the jet’s first mission.”

“It isn’t a  _ mission.  _ It’s a  _ meeting,”  _ Laura muttered. 

“Uh huh,” Dani said, before bowing and making her way onto the mat. She walked over to Laura, and bowed again.

_ “Mōsukoshi junbi ga dekite imasu ka? _ ” Dani asked.  _ You ready for a little more? _ ”

Laura grinned. Even though she was tired, she hadn’t sparred with Dani in a month or two with how entirely busy everything had been, and now took pleasure in accepting.

They easily and fluidly moved through the first few sequences to warm up, lightly hitting and blocking to re-learn each other’s tells, and, while they were doing this, Dani kept talking.

“So, hah, when you  _ do  _ go on another mission, have you thought of a code name yet?” Dani was asking as she deftly blocked a quick hit to her shoulder with a swipe of her forearm.

“A codename?” Laura asked.

“Well, we can’t keep calling you Laura. That’s not good for anonymity’s sake. It’s the Alpha Flight code. Also the X-Men’s” Dani muttered.

Laura ducked as Dani delivered a swift kick and missed.

“Rictor doesn’t have one,” Laura shot back. “Neither does Forge.”

“That’s not,” Dani breathed, moving backward on her feet as Laura advanced, “Entirely true. Forge, sure, but Forge isn’t going on missions anytime soon. And Rictor _ is _ Rictor’s alias. His real name is Julio. What, he never told you that?”

Laura frowned, wavering slightly, and Dani got a hit in by striking Laura’s solar plexus. Not hard, but hard enough to know she wasn’t fooling around.

“His adoptive parents named him that,” Laura said, striking back quickly. “He was... Rictor back at the lab.” It was becoming increasingly hard to talk, and Laura wondered why Dani was bringing this up now.

“You need one,” Dani was breathing hard.

“We can’t all be like you,  _ Mirage,”  _ Laura said through a forward kick, which Dani dodged.

“You know what I think,” Dani said, quickly ducking again as Laura surprised her with another intended hit. Laura frowned, suddenly wanting the conversation to end. Laura damn well knew Dani and Rictor had been calling Laura her  _ father’s  _ alias sometimes behind her back, when they thought Laura couldn’t hear them. 

“I’m  _ not  _ him,” Laura said firmly, finally getting in a kick to Dani’s left leg, bringing her down to one knee.

“I think it’s perfect.  _ Wolverine _ . It suits you,” Dani said, breathing out from her spot on the mat. 

Laura only frowned, when her hearing picked up on another set of footsteps coming down the hallway. In Laura’s pause, Dani took advantage, delivering a roundhouse kick, to sending Laura straight down on her ass.

“ _ Dani!”  _ Laura growled, and the older woman only grinned. 

“Sorry. Had to show off in front of my man,” she said through a wink. “What do you need, Derek?” Dani asked, whipping around to face the man, still in slippers and a robe, standing in the hallway. 

“There’s a call for Laura. It’s Cole,” Derek said through a sip of coffee.

“Damn,” Laura said, quickly bowing to Dani, and making her way off the mat. 

“So when are you going to join me in these early morning workouts?” Dani was pouting to Derek in the background as Laura made her way out of the gym. 

“When you start doing all the accounting for this goddamn place,” the man was saying, and Laura grinned at the couple’s quips as she quickly made her way up the stairs back to her room, pressing a button on a haloprojector so the room itself took the call.

“Hello?” Laura said to the air. Instantly, Cole’s tired voice filled the place. 

“Laura. Hey. Uh, good morning? I don’t fucking know what time it is. Here or  there,” he muttered.

“You sound so chipper,  _ chulo,”  _ Laura grinned, as she began to unbraid her hair and finish her stretches while she talked to him.

“Yeah, well, I was up all night with Charlie. Sandra’s visiting her mom back home and stockpiled enough frozen breastmilk to last me until the end of days,” Cole said blankly.

“And I’m assuming you’ve shut your mouth and not complained once about being left alone with Charlie?” Laura asked through a grin.

“Of fucking course. She needs a break,” Cole muttered.

“Good man,” Laura smiled. “So...what’s up?”

“Look. I know Marie’s probably already left for Mexico, but do you have spare time soon? Like in the next couple of days?”

“What? Why?” Laura was frowning again, even as she continued to thread her fingers through her hair.

“You know that marketing problem we have? I think I’ve found a way to solve it,” Cole was saying.

“What do you mean?”

“In the middle of the night, I got a second email. There’s a public relations specialist in the city I want you to meet.”

“Public relations? You mean, like bullshitting people?” Laura wrinkled her nose in mild disdain. Over the phone she could practically feel Cole rolling his eyes at her. 

“Look, her credentials check out. She’s fairly young, and she’s already the junior executive of one of the world’s most well-renowned firms. Uh...let me look here. It’s called  _ Foundation. _ ”

“Sounds risky. And very…  _ public,”  _ Laura grumbled.

“That’s just it though, Laura. This seems personal. The firm won’t be attached. She wants to do this work on the side, like freelancing. She wants to create a  _ brand  _ for us. For the school,” Cole said on the other line. Laura found herself snorting somewhat as she leaned back on the large oak desk that was always littered with paperwork, but she never seem to sit at, and noticed two long gouge marks in its side, a battle wound of yet another nightmare from a while back.

“Jesus  _ fuck,”  _ she cursed. “Does  _ everyone  _ know what’s going on at this damn place?”

“You can have construction workers sign gag orders all you want, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get drunk and talk,” Cole groused. 

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Laura muttered. And that was the truth. On any given day, there were four or five different vans, plumbers, carpenters, electricians. Construction on the second half of the mansion, the student wing, had already started. 

“Think about it Laura. You said the mansion is slated for completion in December. That means you’re going to need students, which was one of the backer’s conditions. We need to have some sort of public face soon...especially with all this shit with the MLF,” Cole added quietly.

At that, Laura sighed. Laura’s emotional and angered response when the MLF news broke was ending up not being so overwrought. The American government had won in its fight to apprehend them, and all four mutants were currently being charged with first degree murder and arson. They were all from Marie’s time, some of them having claimed allegiance to the now-extinct Brotherhood. However, the conversation surrounding the case had been, at times, corrosive, suggesting anti-mutant sentiment was on the rise. More than one news station had mentioned the spike in children demonstrating an early onset of mutant abilities, children Laura was hoping to recruit to the X-Mansion. Right now, though, the MLF was the face of mutant rights, a fringe, extremist, far past Malcolm-X sort of approach, and until the school was up and running, it would continue to be.

“And why does this...PR lady...even care?” Laura finally asked, half-afraid of the answer as she bit a nail.

“Because she’s a mutant _ ,  _ Laura,” Cole said simply. “Duh.”

_ “ _ What?” Laura asked. In Canada, at least, it was had always been unheard of, anyone being relatively younger who wasn’t born after Transigen who was a mutant. And even when she had arrived to New York and had met Forge, she had considered him a fluke. She knew there were only a couple of dozen or so mutants in their thirties, like Dani, in the country, and maybe only a handful of mutants in their twenties. But here they were, realizing Laura and the group of children who had escaped from the lab all those years ago were maybe not as special as they thought. 

“She’s got an idea of what we’re trying to do here, and she wants to help,” Cole was saying. “We’ll pay her, of course, but…”

“Ok,” Laura said simply, cutting him off.

“Really?” Cole asked. 

“Yeah. I’ll do it. Better than filling out paperwork. When?” Laura asked, glancing down at the carpet and realizing there were bloodstains on the floor and tears in the sheets from when she had been trying to gut the stuff of her nightmares with her claws. She frowned once more.

“Tomorrow. She wants to meet at her office in the city,” Cole was saying.

“Got an address for her?”

“Yeah. I’m sending it to you now. Her name is Astrid Bloom,” Cole said.

“Jesus. Certainly sounds like a mutant,” Laura was saying, but then Cole was talking again.

“And Laura?” 

“Yeah?” she asked hesitantly.

“I don't know if it matters to you or not. But she says she’s a telepath,” Cole said.

For a moment, no one spoke, as the weight of this statement sunk in. 

“Well  _ fuck,”  _ Laura finally muttered to the empty room.

  
  


\--

“So how’s Mexico?” Laura was asking Marie over the phone a few hours later. She was currently balancing her cell with her shoulder and sniffing around the refrigerator for something to eat. With the lack of Marie and Marie’s cooking, Laura was certain that they were all going to starve. It didn’t matter if the fridge was stocked full of vegetables and healthy ingredients. Nobody knew what to fucking  _ do  _ with them.

“Hot,” Marie was saying over the phone. “But the jet’s safely tucked away in the convenient abandoned hangar you found, and we’ve checked in to the rooms we’re renting. You know they’re directly over a bar, right?” she asked.

“Yes, yes I do,” Laura said. “I planned it that way.”

“Thanks for that one,  _ hija,”  _ Marie grumbled. “Rictor was drunk out of his mind last night, having the time of his life. ‘Among his people’ he keeps saying.”

“Thought he would. Well, tell him not to get sloppy. The meeting is 9am sharp tomorrow. Did you stake out the place?” Laura was saying, finally closing the refrigerator door in exasperation.

“Not much to stake out. Tiny town in the desert. Relatively peaceful. I think the  _ federales  _ cracked down on some of these towns years ago,” Marie explained. “Little to no sign or threat of crime or violence.”

“That’s what I was hoping. We don’t need any trouble,” Laura said, sighing as she looked around the empty kitchen, debating whether to tell Marie or not. Finally, she made up her mind to tell her, remembering, shamefully enough, her conversation with her mother a couple days back about keeping secrets.

“Also...uh….I think we might have an answer to our marketing problem,” Laura was saying.

“How so?” Marie asked.

“A hotshot PR rep out of New York. Apparently also a telepath. Cole came in contact with her. Her credentials check out, so I’m meeting with her tomorrow in the city,” Laura said quickly, hoping she sounded sure of herself and her decision to do so.

“Did you say  _ telepath?”  _ Marie asked.

“Yeah,” Laura trailed off. There was silence on the line for a minute, before she heard her mother speak again.

“Your father says to be careful,” Marie murmured.

“Of course. I’m meeting her in the  _ city. _ I’m not gonna disclose the location of-” Laura began, before she was immediately cut off.

“Hold on. Just let him talk,” Marie said. A beat, and then the cadence and rhythm of Marie’s voice changed, and Laura knew Logan had control. 

“Laura? Ya there?”

“Yeah,  _ Papa?”  _ Laura asked, suddenly feeling like she was eleven years old again and in trouble for punching some kid at school or not getting her homework done. She bit her lip nervously as she listened to what her father had to say.

“Any of those kids from Transigen back in the day telepaths?” 

“I...don’t think so,  _ ”  _ Laura muttered, running through the list of her old  _ familia  _ and their powers, and at the memory, Laura frowned slightly. Of the addresses she had, Laura had earlier this year sent personal invitations to all of them to visit the mansion and consider joining the X-Men. So far, only Delilah had responded, with a polite ‘no thank you.’ It seemed that Laura wasn’t the only one interested in burying parts of her past. 

“Well. You needta know a few things. As soon as yer in a radius about the same as yer sense of smell, she has the potential to know everything you know,” Logan warned.

“Yeah, dad. I figured,” Laura muttered.

“I mean  _ everything, _ ” Logan used Marie’s voice to growl. Laura bit her lip momentarily before answering, trying to guess what he was thinking.

“So...you think it’s a bad idea?” Laura asked. A sigh on the other end of the line.

“I don’t know. Just… know the risk yer taking,” he growled. 

“You know...it’s weird. All these mutants coming out of the woodwork. I just keep wondering where they all were for the past ten years,” Laura muttered into the phone, leaving on the kitchen counter, hunger now forgotten.

“Kid, they were here. We were the ones that were hiding,” Logan said quietly. Laura frowned, but said nothing. 

“Listen. I want ya to take yer transponder. Record everything this supposed telepath says; I wanna listen to it after we get back. And ask Forge if he’s any further along on developing the mind protection tech. If he has anything, anything at all, no matter how rudimentary, take it with you,” Logan instructed.

“Ok dad,” Laura said a bit too meekly, still feeling foolish for so quickly jumping at the chance to meet another mutant, without remembering one of her father’s cardinal rules: most people weren’t to be trusted, mutant or no.

“Hey dad?” Laura finally asked, scuffing a foot on the recently installed tile of the faculty kitchen.

“Yeah, kid?”

“Take care of Marie. Be safe, tomorrow, alright?” she muttered into the phone.

“Always,  _ hija,”  _ he said quietly.

“And brush up on your Spanish while you’re down there. Marie needs to work on the subjunctive mood _ , para que ella realmente pueda fluido en Español.” _

“Heh heh. She already knows, but I’ll tell her, kid,” Logan said, sounding a little more at ease.

  
  
  


—

After the conversation with her parents had ended, Laura had resigned to drinking her dinner, and now stalked out into the living room, finding Forge, Dani and Derek immersed in season eight of  _ Friends  _ on the couch. Dani and Derek were eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Forge, cereal.

“Jesus. No one in this house but Marie can cook, can they?” Laura grumbled.

“Nope!” Dani said. “Although I’m pretty impressed with my sandwich making skills.”

“As amazing as it is, I think I need a break from Marie’s cooking. I swear I’ve gained ten pounds,” Derek grumbled through another bite of sandwich.

“That’s why I recommended the  _ gym,  _ baby. I warned you. Marie uses real butter,” Dani said through a smirk, and Derek shot daggers at his fiance. Laura rolled her eyes, and decided to plop down on the other couch across from them next to Forge.

“Beer?” she asked, offering one of the two longnecks she had plucked from the fridge.  Forge stared down at his bowl of mostly-soggy Cheerios, and then back up to Laura.

“Hell yeah,” he muttered, grabbing the bottle from her. For a moment, Laura bit her lip, as she remembered what her father had warned her about, and decided to go ahead and ask the younger mutant.

“Hey buddy, you aren’t any further along with the mind projection tech yet, are ya?” she asked. Suddenly, Forge looked worried, setting down his beer.

“Fuck. Sorry, Laura. No. I’ve been so busy in the war room. Do you want me to? I’m sure I can get started on-” as he began to stand. 

“Hell no! Sit down,” she said, gesturing for him to do so. “Relax. It’s not a huge deal. I’ve just got a meeting with a telepath tomorrow and Logan gave me some pointers.” 

“Fuck. Really?” Forge asked, sitting down once more and snagging his beer again. “God I hope that works out. I can’t figure out Cerebro for the life of me. I think, eventually, I’m gonna need a telepath’s help. It’s all mind-controlled, and while I feel like I understand tech, I don’t  _ communicate  _ with my tech, if you know what I mean. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen,” he muttered into his beer. Laura smiled slightly, before sighing, glancing up at the TV once more.

“Well, Logan said Charles built it, so that makes sense,” she said, a somber note in her voice.

“The Professor must have really been something, then,” Forge said quietly. Laura could feel Dani’s eyes on Laura then, and Laura’s frowned deepend.

“He was, Forge,” Dani murmured, and Laura shot Dani an apologetic look. Out of everyone in this room tonight, Dani knew him the longest, and at his best. It was something Laura had always deeply regretted, only having those few days with Charles. At this thought, she snagged a throw pillow off the couch and snuggled up to it, settling in a bit more.

For a while, they all simply watched the TV, where currently Joey was declaring his love for Rachel. Every once in a while, Dani would throw in a comment- “Oh hell no!”- but otherwise the random bunch was quiet. As another episode came on, Laura’s stomach growled once more, and she felt resigned to go make some popcorn. After she came back, she noticed Derek and Dani were getting a little too snuggly on the couch, Derek whispering things in Dani’s ear Laura wish she couldn’t hear. Forge looked entirely uncomfortable, too, even though he was across the way on the other couch, and Laura decided to chuck some popcorn at the lovebirds.

“Hey, quit being so cute and in love. Some of us are single and miserable over here,” Laura said, plopping back down on the couch next to Forge. And then, realizing what Laura had insinuating, she tried to awkwardly take back her words. 

“Uh, not that  _ you  _ are, buddy,” Laura said, and Forge only smiled with a shake of his head.

“Nope, that pretty much sums it up as far as relationships go,” Forge muttered, and Laura smiled slightly, before thrusting the bowl of popcorn to him.

“If you need artillery, _mi_ _compañero de armas_ ,” she grumbled, scowling once more at the couple.

“Heh. Thanks,” Forge muttered, downing the last of his third beer. For a moment, she wondered about the newest X-Men and her newest friend. Forge spent the majority of his time in that fucking basement, and things were starting to look goddamn respectable down there because of it. It was obvious to everyone he was a workaholic, and often it would take Marie coaxing him upstairs with bribes of food to get him to emerge from the bowels of the mansion. Laura wondered, too, about his personal life, or worried about the lack of one. In the weeks Forge had been there he hadn’t left the mansion. Once. And he was twenty-two years old for fuck’s sake.

“You know… I meant to say, Forge, you’re not being held captive here. Hell, you don’t even need to log your hours or clock in and out. You can leave when you want and go where you want. The garage is now fully stocked with cars. Take whichever one if you need some air,” Laura muttered into her beer.

“And go where?” Forge asked, tilting his head at her in confusion. 

“To uhh… a club? A bar? Places young people go?” At this, Forge frowned. 

“Eh, not really ever my scene,” he muttered. For a second, he simply stared at the television, before adding, “You know. I always wanted to meet a girl in a library.”

At this, Laura snorted, practically spitting out her beer. Forge frowned again, and Laura found herself muttering an apology

“What? What’s wrong with that?” Forge asked naively.

“I just...well, good luck with that. The best women probably  _ do _ hang out in libraries, but they’re not looking to get hit on. Trust me, I’ve tried,” she grumbled, garnering a laugh from the younger mutant.

As the show kept going, it wasn’t long after that she picked up on more sexy talk from the couple on the other couch, and Laura once more chucked popcorn at Dani. “Don’t you dare start making out in the living room when other people are present,” Laura ordered, and Dani simply shot Laura a devilish grin.

“We’re sick of TV, anyway,” she said, moving to stand, grabbing Derek’s hand. Laura only knowingly rolled her eyes.

“Don’t worry about the dishes,” Laura said, stopping Dani from picking up her empty plate. “I’ll do them,” Laura said through a wink, and the two said their goodnights and headed upstairs. 

“You know, sometimes they really get on my nerves,” she joked to Forge as she paused the projector of  _ Friends. _

“Eh. They’re happy. Nothing wrong with that,” Forge said through a yawn and a stretch. 

“Wanna watch  _ Night of the Living Dead _ with me?” Laura asked, and Forge only grinned guiltily a little. 

“Sorry, Laura. Break time’s over. Gonna go fiddle with the tactical halo map some more. If I can get it working tonight, and I think I can, I’ll let you know, then we can track Marie and Rictor visually tomorrow morning,” Forge said.

“Do you  _ ever  _ sleep?” Laura asked.

“Probably about as much as you do,” Forge shot back, to which Laura let out a laugh.

“Alright, alright. Have fun,” Laura muttered, saluting him with her mostly empty beer bottle. “And Forge?”

“Yeah?” he said, turning back toher.

“Thanks,” Laura muttered, “for everything.”  Forge smiled then, before heading toward the basement once more. Laura frowned as she looked around the now quiet, empty living room. She checked the time, realizing it was only 9pm. She sighed then, moving to pick up the empty bowls and plates scattered on the coffee table, planning on scrubbing the entirety of the kitchen, fully intent on avoiding sleep at all costs.

  
  


—

She kept her promise to herself. Groggily, she had cleaned and mopped well into the night, and when she had finally made her way to her room, she had poured over the new demographic information she had gathered about the swell in mutant populations. She was currently helping Marie on all fronts, planning curriculum, understanding what classes needed to be taught. Between that and her plans for the X-Men, it was obvious to everyone that Laura was burning the candle at both ends. But what only Marie knew, however, was that most often Laura did so as a means of survival.

As dawn approached, she stubbornly headed down to the gym once more, sneakers on this time. She proceeded to run on the treadmill, brain for the most part turned off, as she abused her body mile after mile. Two hours in, she stopped, breathing heavy, glancing down at her watch and realizing she’d better hurry her ass up. An hour later she was showered, dressed, and starting Marie’s volvo. With the lack of mind protection equipment, Laura only carried with her a wallet in a jean pocket and a tiny, nearly invisible transponder, placed in the inner portion of her ear. She was intent on keeping her promise to Logan, and even if she couldn’t entirely protect her mind from this woman, they would at least have a record of their conversation.

She watched with anticipation and a growing nervous energy as Marie’s Volvo began to head east and the trees of upstate New York vanished into the concrete and steel of the city. Logan had set Laura on edge about the meeting today, and she tried, desperately, to clear her mind as the car got closer to Manhattan. If the woman was to be trusted, she had the potential to be a remarkable boon to the X-Men. But, Laura was starting to realize, that might very well be a big if.

As Marie’s Volvo made its way into midtown Manhattan, finally the vehicle pulled up to the address she had programmed. Laura stepped out of the vehicle in the mid-day sun and sent it off to park itself, and when she looked up, she almost swallowed her tongue at the looming behemoth of a skyscraper before her. It was a garish building, almost all windows, and it had to easily be over eighty floors high. Laura frowned once more, adjusting her jacket, suddenly very much aware of her ripped jeans and combat boots as she entered into the pristine lobby. All around her, men and women in business suits, women’s heels  _ clicking  _ on the marble floors, the smell of hairspray and expensive perfume clouding the air and making Laura’s eyes water. The animal instantly felt on-edge, and Laura stifled a low growl of disdain as she made her way over to the overly large check-in desk.

“I’m looking for the  _ Foundation  _ office _.  _ They’re a PR company,” Laura muttered, pulling off her aviators as she did so.

The woman with red hair and a scowl on her face barely made eye contact with Laura.  

“Yes, and  _ Foundation  _ happens to operate on twelve different floors.  _ Who  _ did you have an appointment with?” the woman asked, and this time, Laura did snarl slightly, before muttering, “Astrid Bloom.”

The woman’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief, as finally looked at Laura a little more fully. 

“Really, now?” the woman asked incredulously.

“ _ Yes,”  _ Laura snarled, shoving her hands in her jacket pockets as the woman unceremoniously dialed a quick string of numbers on her haloprojector and began speaking into an earpiece. 

“Yes. Linda. Hello. I have,” she paused looking up to Laura once more, “and  _ what  _ is your name?”

“Laura Howlett,” she grumbled through gritted teeth. If this was gonna go on any longer Laura couldn’t promise she wouldn’t use her claws to cut her way through  _ something.  _

“I have a...  _ Miss _ Laura Howlett here to see Dr. Bloom, and I believe she is  _ mistaken-  _ oh.  _ Oh.  _ Uhh… yes then. Yes ma’am. Right away,” she said, before ending the call.

“Yes. I apologize, Miss Howlett. Take this key card,” she said handing the transparent disk attached to a lanyard, “to the 78th floor. Dr. Bloom’s office is the door straight ahead after you exit the elevator.”

“Thanks,” Laura muttered. 

“We’ve also deactivated the metal sensors before you reach the elevator hall,” she said a little more thinly. “Per Dr. Bloom’s request.”

“ _Swell,”_ Laura muttered, before shoving off from the desk, stalking off toward the elevators, lanyard swinging from one tightened, clenched fist. As she passed through the detectors that dutifully stayed silent, Laura tried to quickly assemble the pieces of information she had been given, both inadvertently and advertently, in the past two minutes. Cole had said nothing about this woman being a doctor, Laura assumed of an academic variety. Obviously, whatever _junior executive_ position she had was a position of exceptional power within her workplace. And finally, she knew, somehow, about Laura’s powers, about what Laura could do, down to the adamantium currently lurking in Laura’s forearms. And for a stranger having that much information, well, that could be dangerous. 

As Laura ascended the elevator, her heart rate jumped up. Ever since exiting the car, Laura realized this was probably a terrible idea. She was made to already feel like an outsider because of what she was wearing in the office lobby. What was she doing here, in a fucking skyrise in midtown Manhattan seeking the help of people who looked at anyone who wasn’t wearing fucking Gucci like they were worth less than a  _ pedazo de mierda _ ?

Laura wasn’t oblivious. She knew Westchester would have a job to do, and soon. There were hundreds of mutant kids out there who had been born after Transigen had been disassembled, who were all about to hit puberty very, very soon. But when Laura imagined these kids, she thought of little girls growing up in trailers in Mississippi or a kid in a crappy apartment in Iowa or something. Laura just needed to focus on opening her doors, and finding them. How a fucking Manhattan socialite was going to try to build a “brand” to try to reach them was starting to sound far fetched at best. With every floor the elevator ascended, the more and more she regretted her decision to come here. 

As the elevator finally reached its destination, Laura cleared her throat, as a long, pristine hallway opened up to her. Everything, much like the lobby, was glass and steel, austere and cold and overdone in its minimalism, and Laura’s boots felt heavy as they thudded forward and she reached the door. Staring at it with a frown, she decided to knock.

It immediately dematerialized, and she was greeted with  _ another  _ small lobby, this time an older looking  _ latina  _ woman sitting behind the desk, still perfectly coiffed in a peach suit, pearls around her neck. Still though, seeing a person of color put Laura a little more at ease, and she walked up to the woman thankfully.

“ _ Hola, señora. Encantada de conocerte. Estoy buscando-”   _ Laura began, before being immediately cut off.

“Dr. Bloom will see you now, Miss Howlett.” Laura immediately frowned, because any  _ hispana  _ would respond in  _ Español  _ unless they were incredibly brainwashed-- or  _ whitewashed  _ Laura thought bitterly, and sighed, turning to the final door.

As soon as she was going off in her head with a string of swear words-- _ putos presumidos gringos--  _ this door also dematerialized, and Laura, ironically and once again, was face to face with the tall, beautiful African-American woman Laura had rudely shooed out of her apartment several weeks ago, after a night of wild, nameless, incredibly hot sex.

“ _ Mierda,”  _ she said under her breath.

She was donned in a black dress that hugged her long curves, her skin flawless and almost as dark as the shade she was wearing.The braids that hung loose that night Laura had had her way with her in her bed were now coiled up into a no-nonsense bun, and the woman wore chunky, shimmering gold earrings and bangles. If Laura had felt underdressed before, she  _ certainly  _ did now. Laura swallowed hard, and scuffed her foot on the expensive marble.

“Hello, Laura,” the woman said through a dazzling white smile. “Please come in,” she added, then was gesturing Laura to follow her, and Laura did, the door rematerializing on its own behind her. The woman’s office was twice the size of Laura’s rooms at Westchester, with far less stuff in it. Everything was minimal, from the sharp lines and austere design, to the all-glass walls that opened up to the city beyond. There were two stainless-steel desks with halo projectors open on both, and only a couple of framed certificates, along with a photo of her with an older woman who looked nearly identical apart from her greying hair, most likely her mother. Other than that, there were two white leather sitting chairs probably more expensive than Marie’s Volvo, and a white marble table between them. Plus a bowl of fruit, oddly enough. 

“Uh. Dr. Bloom, was it? I had _ no _ idea-” Laura attempted.

“Laura, it’s ok, _ ”  _ she said through a warm smile, gesturing to one of the white leather chairs for Laura to sit in, as she sat opposite of Laura. “I  _ hate  _ that they call me that. Astrid’s fine.”

“Uh, ok. Astrid,” Laura muttered, the name still foreign and strange on her tongue. She finally sat down, a bit off-kilter, noting that every hair on the back of Laura’s neck stood on end. She already knew  _ el animal  _ felt tricked, cheated, and on higher alert than ever before.

“From the way your mouth dropped open, I’m assuming you _ didn’t  _ remember my name from the club, did you?” she grinned, crossing one long leg over the other, a shiny pointed stiletto gleaming in the harsh light.

“Ehh. Sorry, no,” Laura said, before looking up to the woman once more. “But apparently you remembered  _ mine.”  _

“I did. Listen, I can see you have that whole fight-or-flight thing going on. Just...try to relax. I’m not trying to _trick_ you or anything. I’m just happy you agreed to be here. Quite honestly, I only thought you agreed because you _remembered_ my name. I’ve been trying to find you,” she said.

“Yeah, well, here I am anyway,” Laura muttered. Her boots were planted to the floor, and her arms were crossed uncomfortably as she glanced around the office once more.

“Nice digs,” Laura grumbled.

“You hate it,” Astrid offered back through a small smile. “But thanks. PR pays.”

“I just don’t do well this high up in the air,” Laura said through a slight shrug of her shoulders. Astrid smirked, but offered no return response. 

“So...uh, listen...about that night…” Laura began awkwardly, before Astrid was waving away Laura’s regret with her hand. 

“Honey, you don’t owe me an apology. I knew what I was getting into that night. Knew what you wanted from me, what I could give to you. I  _ am  _ a grown woman, after all,” she muttered.

Laura cleared her throat, as memories of that night bubbled up in her mind, how Laura had held the woman’s wrists tightly down on the bed, how savagely she had made the woman come, forever striving to satiate her domineering sexual tendencies. At the thought,  _ el animal  _ snarled inside her mind in satisfaction in light of the memory. Laura ignored it.

“So...huh...how did you find out about me? About Westchester?” Laura asked, immediately changing the subject. “My lawyer, who set up the meeting, says...you’re a telepath. I’m assuming you read my mind that night?”

“What?” Astrid said through a surprised glance. “ _ Hell no.  _ Lord have mercy.  _ No. _ Safe to say, I don’t go around randomly reading people’s minds, especially if they’re the women who I let fuck me. In my experience, not a good move.”

“But you  _ are  _ a telepath, right? A...mutant?” Laura pressed, for some reason the word sounding stranger on Laura’s tongue than ever before. Astrid’s eyes narrowed, as she offered a quick nod to Laura.

“But no one else here knows that,” she murmured.

“I see,” Laura said quietly. 

“Listen, I can see you don’t trust me. I’m not sure  _ why,  _ but let me clarify. After I met you, I couldn't stop thinking about you or what I suspected you were up to. I knew your name. I knew you were trying to get “a jet” to fly, and I knew you were from upstate. I also knew you were a mutant, and that you could heal. And I _ only  _ knew that because you either were drunkenly relaying it to me that night or you were  _ projecting  _ the rest so loud I wanted to cover my ears and hum some inane tune like ‘It’s a Small World’ to get you out of my head.”

“Jesus fuck,” Laura muttered. “Sorry. Sounds like a pretty fucking lame night for you.”

“Hell, no,” Astrid said, before glancing down at her hands through another smile, playing with a gold ring on her finger. “Best sex I’ve had in  _ years. _ ”

At that, Laura could feel herself going red, even as  _ el animal  _ was once again growling in satisfaction and pride.  _ Shut the hell up,  _ she scolded the animal, and once more she cleared her throat.

“So you pieced it together. Figured it out. And what would  _ you _ know about the X-Men, then? Or Westchester?” Laura asked incredulously. At this, Astrid again evened her eyes at Laura.

“Probably more than you. I wrote my dissertation on Xavier and his legacy,” she said simply. 

“Dissertation? So there’s were the  _ Dr.  _ comes from. So now you need a PhD do this kinda shit?” Laura asked rudely, looking around the room.

“My  _ PhD i _ s in history, with a concentration in mutant studies. I did _ that _ because I was trying to understand my  _ people.  _ Where I came from. Because, for the longest time, I thought I was the only one left,” Astrid said quietly. At this, Laura frowned a little, realizing just what the woman was admitting to. Meanwhile, Astrid kept talking

“I do ‘this kinda shit’ because there are  _ no jobs  _ in mutant studies, not even teaching it at the collegial level, and I need to make a living. I do this mainly to be able to live here in New York where I grew up.  _ Also  _ because I like expensive shoes,” she said, tilting a stiletto up from where her legs were crossed, flashing a telltale Christian Louboutin red sole. “And because I’m good at it.”

“Because you know what people want,” Laura grumbled, crossing her arms.

“Exactly,” she said through a smile. But then it fell again, as she leaned back in the expensive chair, crossing her arms once more.

“You want to know how old I am,” she said.

“Reading my mind, again?” Laura asked stubbornly, looking up to her with suspicion.

“ _ Jesus.  _ Laura. No. Again, I don’t  _ do  _ that unless it’s been invited. It’s  _ obvious  _ by the way you’re looking at me,”  she mumbled.

“Hell. Sorry. Yeah, I sorta do,” she mumbled to her lap. “Wondering how you went to Yale a couple of times over and managed to become an executive at a company looking as young as you do,” Laura said, gesturing to the framed degrees on the desk across the room.

“I’m twenty nine, so I’m not a complete  _ cradle robber.  _ I also finished high school early,” she murmured. 

“Of course,” Laura said through a tired sigh. At this, Astrid lifted a brow, swinging her head back around to look at Laura dead on.

“And may I ask how old  _ you  _ are? You look mid-twenties, but…”

“I am. Twenty five,” Laura muttered.

“Miraculous,” she said through a tiny shake of her head and a small smile.

“What?” Laura asked. 

Astrid blushed a little and added quietly, “For how good you are in bed.”

Laura couldn’t help but growl slightly at that, trying desperately to repress the memory of just how nice Astrid’s body had looked naked against Laura’s sheets, and tried, desperately, to stay focused on the reason she was here.  

“Yeah, well. There’s more than one way to read people,” she responded.

“Obviously,” Astrid murmured, and then the room was suddenly filling with sexual tension to the point where the woman cleared her throat, and chose to stand. In those heels she was even taller, several inches taller than Laura. The younger mutant stayed seated, as Astrid picked up a portable haloprojector from her desk, along with a pair of glasses, which surprised Laura somewhat as she settled them on her face.

“ _ Anyway,  _ after realizing what you might be up to and after your lawyer confirmed it for me,  _ and it makes sense,  _ I’m reaching out to you today because I think the school could stand to have a little more marketing as a part of its re-opening, if your goal is still to reach new mutants in need of refuge,” she said, peering over the glasses perched on her nose and turning on the projector. She quietly made her way back over to the table and sat, now bringing up page after page of written notes being projected, flipping through them quickly.

“What’s all that?” Laura asked curiously.

“Research,” Astrid said, peering over her glasses at Laura. “From Yale. I was reminding myself of a few things before you showed up,” Astrid said. “The short version of my suggestion is to really approach this from a mutant angle.”

“Charles always kept the true nature and purpose of the school under wraps,” Laura said carefully. 

“It’s not the 20th century anymore, Laura. And mutants are still in the public favor. But that can change. I’m afraid it  _ will  _ change. I’m assuming you’ve read about what’s going on with the MLF case?” she asked, looking up to Laura once more. Laura sighed, placing her elbows on her knees and running her hands through her loose hair.

“You mean is it keeping me up at night?” Laura asked. “Because...yes.”

“That’s why you need me,” Astrid said, minimizing the projector and looking to Laura once more. “Right now, this is a war of values. A war of  _ advertising.  _ We want politicians on our side. We need to be seen as the human beings we all are. The school provides the perfect imagery for that,” she said quietly.  

Laura tilted her head, unable to withstand sniffing the air, just to make sure Astrid wasn’t lying about anything. Immediately though, the woman narrowed her eyes.

“I’m being honest,” she said simply. “I  _ care  _ about this stuff.”

Laura said nothing for a moment, before adding, “So...how would this all work?”

“Well… “ Astrid trailed off in thought, plucking the glasses off her face and setting them down on the table between the two women. “I thought I could do a little bit  _ pro bono _ , set up a portfolio of potential work, see if you like my style. Consider it... a proposal. And if you like it, you can hire me as an independent contractor. All above the table, of course, completely legal and legitimate,” she finished confidently. 

“But  _ Foundation  _ isn’t to be involved?” she asked, gesturing around the office they were currently sitting in.

“No. You wanted to be fairly covert, yes? Including them is  _ not  _ the way to do that. And to be honest, Laura. I’m bored here. And I’ve saved up four weeks of leave. I’d like a little  _ break,”  _ Astrid murmured. 

“A break to do more work?” Laura asked bluntly.

“Like I said, this work  _ means  _ something to me,” she said, looking Laura directly in the eye. 

“Ok. I can get behind that. And if we agree to hire you, you don’t need.. housing?” Laura asked, looking up at Astrid once more. To Laura’s surprise, the beautiful woman in front of her laughed out loud. 

“Oh,  _ baby.  _ I’m not trying to brag, but if you saw my place, you would definitely know I  _ do not  _ need housing. Although I’m sure the mansion is lovely and all,” she said through another gleaming white smile. 

“We like to think it is,” Laura mumbled, and then the woman let out a small laugh again.

“What?”

“Just...the X-Men. Always living under one roof. I always loved that. Although the epitome of nepotism,  _ yes? _ ” she asked Laura through dancing eyes. She wasn’t sure in this moment if the older mutant was making fun of her, or simply teasing.

“We’re family,” Laura mumbled.

“Exactly my point,” Astrid said. Laura sighed heavily, finally moving to stand, striding over to one of the windows, staring out at the whole of Manhattan beyond. She bit her lip slightly, and then turned back to the woman. 

“So, if I agree to a proposal and we don’t like your work, no strings attached?” Laura asked. Astrid smiled, and then stood once more, walking over to where Laura stood by the window.

“No strings, no hurt feelings,” she murmured. “I...just got wind of what you were doing, and I just want to  _ help.” _

Laura frowned slightly, thought about it a second more, and decided in that moment the woman in front of her was genuine, despite her father’s warnings.

“Ok, fine. Work it up, I guess. And you should know, we pay well, but probably not well enough to afford shoes like  _ those _ every week,” she said, gesturing to the black stilettos Astrid was standing in.

“I’ll survive,” she joked.

“So we have a deal?” Laura asked, stepping forward a stride, offering her hand to shake. 

“Deal,” Astrid said, taking Laura’s hand. Instantly, Laura could hear Astrid’s pulse quickening by the proximity and the touch, and even... _ was that mild arousal?  _ Fuck. She had to get out of here. Her mind was already threatening once more to visually replay that night in her head, and Laura didn’t want to be in accosting proximity of this beautiful woman when that happened. Laura was tired, overworked and easily capable of making bad decisions right now. 

“When you’re done with the proposal, come by the school to drop it off. We can send a car. Just contact our lawyer,” she said, before standing back a step after the handshake ended.

“Fabulous,” Astrid said. Laura gave a curt nod of the head, turning to walk out, when she heard the woman’s voice again.

“Oh, and Laura?”

“Yeah?” Laura asked, summoning all her energy to stop and  _ not  _ do something she would regret. 

“If you ever wanted to, I don’t know, take me out on a  _ real _ date, I wouldn’t decline,” Laura heard her say, and, at this, Laura whipped her head back around to the woman, eyes wide. 

“ _ Que _ ?” came out of her mouth before she had time to think of anything smarter to say, let alone say it in English.

Astrid only smiled shyly at her, some of her impeccable exterior professionalism diminishing as she bit her lip and grasped one hand with the other.

“Uh, well. Well I... I don’t really  _ date _ -” Laura was trying to say in the interim.

“Mutants? Or just not telepaths?” Astrid cut her off through another question.

“ _ Excuse _ me?” Laura blurted, and beyond that, she was speechless.

“I just… “ Astrid muttered, stopping for a moment before continuing on. “Seems like as soon as you found out  _ what _ I am, you have no interest in knowing more about  _ who _ I am.”

Laura only blinked at her for a moment, considering this.  _ Had  _ she treated her differently than she had that night, based solely on the new knowledge she was a  _ telepath?  _ Logan had warned her, had primed Laura to go in there with her defenses up, but Astrid had done nothing that suggested she was anything other than honest and well-intentioned, besides maybe committing the crime of working in a gaudy-ass office. And if that was the case, perhaps Laura had walked into this very room with a chip on her shoulder, with some of her own prejudice coursing through her veins. Although, if Laura thought about it, there could be another reason, an obvious realization that was throwing everything off….

“ _ Bonita.  _ I’ve… I’ve never even  _ been _ with another mutant before,” Laura stammered, and then bit her tongue, realizing how stupid and immature she sounded.

_ Until me, that is,  _ a voice suddenly and completely filled Laura’s mind, and Laura couldn’t control it for a minute as  _ el animal  _ whipped Laura’s head up for her sharply and sniffed the air, for one of the first times not  _ entirely  _ trusting her own senses. 

_ Sorry. I’m not trying to be cute. Just... verifying I am who I say I am,  _ Astrid mentally murmured to Laura, though her mouth didn’t move, only coiled up into a genuine smile. Laura stared at her, still a bit wild-eyed.

“So, no mutants. Any particular reason why not?” Astrid was using her real voice again, walking a step closer to her.  _ Yep. Definitely arousal in the air.  _

_ Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.  _

“ _ No, _ ” Laura finally stammered. “I don’t  _ discriminate  _ or anything _.  _ They’re just... aren’t many of us out there,” she finally muttered. 

“Well,” Astrid said through a sigh. “That’s true, at least. We are few...and far between. Listen, babe. Just so you know, about the telepath thing at least, we’re not  _ all  _ backstabbing treacherous snakes, no matter who told you otherwise. It’s a stereotype. Just like ferals aren’t-”

“-mindless, raging animals,” Laura responded blankly, cutting her off, suddenly an image from her nightmare two nights ago filling her head. Astrid looked up to Laura sharply, before frowning. 

“That’s not how I would have put it, but, yeah,” she said quietly, looking Laura directly in the eye. No one spoke for a moment and Laura bit her lip cautiously, before glancing down once more, realizing she needed to say something.

“Sorry, if I offended you or… made you feel that way. You just... _ all this,  _ the  _ Dr. Bloom  _ stuff, caught me off guard. And I’m not- I’m not used to…” she muttered, letting her hands fall to the sides once more as she trailed off, unsure of what she meant.

“I now know I did catch you off guard,” Astrid whispered, once more taking a step closer to Laura, now breathing in Laura’s same air. “And I’m sorry. But, I  _ truly believe  _ in what you’re doing. And...despite how quickly you shoved me out of your apartment, I  _ wanted  _ to see you again. To get to know you better too.”

“What about nepotism?” Laura breathed, very aware her heart rate was elevated, that she was aroused, the animal intensely pacing just beyond her control over it. 

“I didn’t necessarily say I had anything  _ against  _ it,” Astrid hissed in her ear, and it was then Laura growled, taking a step closer to her, unable to help herself this time. She quietly ran a couple fingers down one side of woman’s profile, along her long, flat torso, and the older mutant shut her eyes and sucked in a shaky breath for a moment, shuddering slightly. Inwardly, Laura growled contently.

“Bring the proposal by when it’s ready. Then yeah. Ok. A date. Maybe,” Laura murmured, releasing her hand, finally feeling like she was standing on her own two feet again by re-establishing dominance over this powerful, exceptional woman. Astrid blushed, looking down for a moment, before finally meeting Laura’s eyes again.

“So...you’re saying it better be a damn good proposal,” she breathed, before stepping back, wiping her mouth slightly, as if she had been kissed, even though Laura, with all her might, had abstained.

“Heh. Maybe,” Laura couldn’t help but grin.

“Oh wow. Look at that. A fucking  _ smile _ ,”  Astrid smirked, putting a hand on her hip, and Laura growled, savoring the sass she was throwing Laura’s way.

“Don't get used to it,  _ niña _ ,” she hissed, and, with a final nod, strode out of the office, past the ogling eyes of the secretary, down the elevator and out of the streets of New York City, intent on a well-deserved drink.

It wasn’t until at the bar, on her third IPA, that Laura noticed the transponder in her ear, having recorded the entire conversation from the office. Laura frowned as she plucked it out, and the frown deepened as she easily crushed the tiny device under her thumb, sending a silent apology to Forge who had built it. There were some things,  _ some things,  _ she wanted to keep for herself and for herself alone. 

Like the fact she didn’t want to be exactly like her father and, although she loved him, certainly didn’t want the code name,  _ Wolverine _ .

Or that sometimes she cried herself to sleep in quiet mourning over the pain suffered by her five year old self.

Or that lust might have clouded her sense of judgment. Maybe. Possibly. 

Regardless,  _ this _ , what happened  _ today,  _ was one of them. And she intended on keeping it that way.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the amazing @bluefrogsbestfrogs for editing this monster of a chapter. <3


	8. Southern Charm

**Chapter 8: Southern Charm**

**_San Juanito, Mexico_ **

**_November 2043_ **

 

It was late. The small matchbox of a room was thick and heavy, the ceiling fan uselessly slicing through the heat. Marie was currently at the tiny, partially cracked bedroom window, leaning on the sill, trying to at least catch something that could be a breeze, but it was useless. There wasn’t any. She was stripped down to a tank top and underwear, and a sheen of sweat covered her body. If Logan focused, he could feel it drip down her temple, could feel the warmth of her hand as she wiped it away. She sighed tiredly, and Logan also felt her restlessness as she gave up on trying to cool herself off and flopped back down on the discolored sheets of the twin mattress in the room she had paid for for the night. Marie was uncomfortable, but so was Logan. He always was when she was, so intrinsically tied to her thoughts and emotions, but tonight it went well beyond that. It was only a few hours until their meeting with Gambit, and while they had combed the town thoroughly and had memorized the blueprints of the bar and motel above and had spent hours watching people carefully that day to prepare, following proper mission protocol from their former days as X-Men, they both felt, well,  _ rusty.  _

It didn’t help that this was the first mission he was on where he couldn’t actually fucking  _ do  _ anything. And he felt cagey, helpless, and, if he was being honest with himself a bit inferior. If things went south, if something bad happened, he wouldn’t be able to protect Marie, apart from seizing control of her body in some way. And that wouldn’t necessarily help. It was one thing to reside in Marie’s mind during the years they had spent at the lakehouse, doing crossword puzzles and playing chess and reading novels. It was quite another now. This was an X-Men mission. This was  _ action,  _ this held  _ consequences for the future.  _ And he, of course, had no means, no way  _ to  _ act. To help. And it was driving him fucking crazy.  

It didn’t help that Rictor had become hideously drunk that evening and Marie had just finished helping him puke in a dirty toilet in the only bathroom that was in the middle of their adjacent rooms, before finally lugging the man into his own room and into bed. Marie could still hear him moaning through the drywall separating her room from his, which only pissed Logan off further. 

_ I told you to keep an eye on him,  _ Logan growled again after a particularly loud groan from Rictor.

“I  _ did.  _ He’s a sneaky bastard, even with the gift of your hearing. I thought he was done for the night hours ago. He must’ve snuck back downstairs when we were finishing going over the collected intel,” Marie grumbled outwardly to the empty, darkened room. 

_ He better have his ass up and at ‘em tomorrow. You’ve swept the area four times, done your homework. Rictor ain’t done shit _ .  _ Least he can do is watch yer fucking six, put his powers to good use if things get nasty,  _ Logan grumbled again. 

“He’s new to this. And we’re not gonna need him,” Marie murmured, once more wiping her sweat of her brow and flipping over her thin pillow to the colder side, now lying on her stomach.

_ That’s my fuckin’ point. These X-Men need a fucking crash course in mission protocol. And some fucking danger room sessions.  _

“Forge is working as fast as he can to get it back up and running,” Marie muttered. But Logan wasn’t listening. Not really. 

_ These goddamn kids. They don’t know shit. No one back then would have ever gotten shitfaced on a mission like this. And what the fuck was Laura thinking? Plannin’ to charge into the city again and meet some telepath she doesn’t know? Without psionic inhibiting tech, completely fucking vulnerable? _

“I think she’s thinking a telepath on our side again would be incredibly useful,” Marie grumbled unenthusiastically into the pillow, and by her tone alone, let alone the sheer  _ annoyance _ from her thoughts he could read, she was obviously fed up with Logan’s complaints. It’s just that he didn’t give a shit at the current moment. He needed her to listen.

_ You can’t trust ‘em if you don’t know ‘em. They could be looking to dismantle what we’re tryin’ to do here, or take it over for themselves. _

“It’s not a ‘they.’ From everything Cole’s dug up on her, it’s just one woman,” Marie said. 

_ We don’t know that for sure though. Fuck. I just wish she was going in there better prepared. Goddamnit, if I had a fucking body, she’d know this. I’d be training their asses in fight club every fucking morning. I’d make sure she’d do it right. _

“Thanks for that, sugar. Glad to know I’m doing such a bang-up job,” Marie quietly growled.

_ It’s not you. We just need. Jesus. We need more fucking adults. _

“That’s why we’re here for Gambit,” Marie interrupted. 

_ I don’t mean  _ him.  _ We don’t need a spineless cajun who slapped on a uniform for a few weeks.  _

“He saved our lives on that Budapest mission,” Marie said.

_ Bullshit. I would’ve gotten us outta that compound eventually. I would’ve found a way out. He just had to impress ya with his fucking pyrotechnics. And it wasn’t long after that he took off again. Watch yerself tomorrow. That  swamp ass is up to more than what he says, that’s for fuckin’ sure,  _ Logan said. 

“I can handle myself, thank you very much,” she growled again, flopping over once more in bed, now lying on her back in the dark.

_ I know, kid, but nothing about this sounds right. Cajun was never in it just for info. He wouldn’t take the time, wouldn’t bother. But Laura didn’t know that when she set this thing up. He wants somethin’. Somethin’  _ material.  _ And I mean more than just a pass at ya, although he’ll probably try that too, _  Logan grumbled.

“Baby, please. What could he possibly want? He’s probably just curious. And he doesn’t even know I’m here or associated with the X-Men still. And I’m an old woman, for chrissakes,” Marie grumbled. 

_ No, you ain’t,  _ Logan muttered.  _ Yer just stuck on this birthday thing. _

“I’m turning sixty years old next week,” she pouted to the dark. 

Logan, of course, already knew this. Marie had been down on herself the past few days as the birthday approached, and she seemed to keep forgetting she had stopped aging and still had the ass of a thirty year old.  Still though, something about it bothered her, and Logan was still trying to fucking figure out how to quell her anxiety. It didn’t seem to matter he could read her  _ thoughts  _ and resided in her fucking  _ head.  _ Of course, right now, he wasn’t doing such a fucking good job of quelling anything.

_ Just be on alert. I don’t trust the fucker. He’s gonna want something from us-  _

“Logan. Please shut the hell up,” Marie grumbled. 

_ We have to actually look at the shit on the floor if we don’t want to step in it. And now all this with the MLF- _

“Logan-”

_ -gotta fucking deal with their asses. Some fucking old-ass mutants runnin’ around, causing trouble- _

“-shut up-”

_ -we’ve bitten off more than we can chew. We need to prioritize. Get more organized. We need to- _

“I said  _ QUIET!” _ Marie hissed to the dark, and at that Logan felt himself quickly being pulled down as the setting blurred into life around him, and suddenly he had a body and was laying flat on his back on their bed at the cabin and his woman was straddling him, her hand over his mouth in the dark.

She’d never done it that fast, and he simply blinked at her widely as she breathed heavily in anger, her heart beating erratically. She still was only in a thin tank top and not much else. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Logan growled, half in shock and half pissed off. “You didn’t have to fucking go  _ that  _ far.” 

“I felt like you needed a physical reminder,” she groused, finally whipping a leg off him and sitting next to him on the bed and sighing exasperatedly. 

“Didn’t think we were doing this tonight,” he grunted to her, groaning a bit as he sat up. The first few minutes he was always at his clumsiest, no matter how many times in the past few weeks they had been here together, and he struggled to once more have command over his body.

“We’re  _ not,”  _ she said, rubbing her temple with one hand, still fuming, but also obviously exhausted. It was then, as he saw the way she held her head, that the anger and anxiety left him, replaced by a nasty helping of guilt. It took seeing her. It took finally being able to fucking look at her, and see her fatigue, her worry, her stress. He had fucked up. Again. By bein’ too close. 

“Darlin,” he muttered, reaching for her shoulder with a heavy hand in a half-apology, before she immediately shrugged it off. He frowned slightly, but let her be. He waited quietly, and only after a few minutes did he realize it was now snowing outside the cabin, although two days ago when they had been here it had been summer. Obviously Marie’s subconscious was at work.

“Gambit’s not the only reason,” she finally said tiredly, turning a bit to face him directly on the bed.

“What?” he barely managed to mutter. 

“This  _ place, _ ” she whispered. And Logan’s face fell as he took her meaning. 

“You mean Mexico,” Logan muttered. 

“Yes,” she whispered. 

“What about it, Marie?” Logan asked carefully.

“You know,” she whispered. He said nothing for a moment as his body instinctively stiffened. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” she murmured to him.

“Kid. That’s not- that isn’t what this is-” he stammered.

“It  _ wasn’t  _ your fault,” she whispered harshly to him again, moving to out a hand up to the scruff of his jaw. For a moment he stared into her large, brown eyes, but then he was shaking it off, grabbing her arms tightly and putting them down again in her lap.

“Stay sharp tomorrow kid,” is all he could mutter back to her. “I can’t be there to keep you outta trouble.” 

“Logan…” Marie muttered. He sighed a little, and ran a hand through his hair, suddenly desperately  _ not  _ wanting a body.  _ Not  _ wanting to give hints, tells, clues. Just wanting...for the first time in a long time...to be fucking alone.  _ Truly  _ alone. 

“Just… get some real sleep Marie. While yer out, I’ll run over the intel and plans in your memory until the morning, see if there’s anything we missed. Then I’ll wake you,” he muttered, unable to bring his eyes up to meet hers. She sighed then, and then he watched as she disappeared and he disappeared and the room vanished and they were back, and he was caged inside again, and she was silent in the hot, damp dark of the relentless Mexico night.  

  
  


\--

It reminded him of the heat. It reminded him of Storm. It reminded him of restlessness, of often being shut out from the conversation. It reminded him of  _ then.  _ It was a tiny, cramped bar. And, even this early in the morning, it was surprisingly full of patrons, all of them likely trying to escape the overwhelming heat of the desert. Even though it was faint from where he sat in Marie’s mind, he could smell the scent of sweat and coffee beans and Tecate, the stale air hanging all around them. It could have been thirty years prior. It could have been then, when he first got wind that they had found Rogue, and that she was alive. The same day he had learned Hank was dead. The first time around.

What did it matter, anyway? What had she been telling him all the while?  _ Time was relative. Time is a pinwheel. And when you blow it, it spins. We spin.  _ It could have been then, Logan thought cynically. It could be then, or now, or sometime in the future. He was fuckin’  _ dead  _ anyway. What did any of it matter?

Except for that all of it mattered. Marie’s safety, Laura’s hope, his family. It all very much mattered, and they came first. They had to. He tried, hard, to remind himself of that in this moment as Marie cooly settled herself into a chair at a tiny table. Quite to his fucking surprise, Rictor had stumbled out of bed this morning and was sitting at a table near the entryway of the place, with a view of the window directly in front of him, with his back to Marie. Both of them had small earpieces in, transparent and no bigger than a size of a flea. Rictor would be able to hear her conversation with Gambit, every word, and they could communicate just as easily. And, for the moment, as a precaution, because last time they checked the mutant they were meeting didn’t know shit about the language, they spoke to each other discreetly and purely in Spanish.

_ “Lo veo caminando por la calle. ¿Chico alto, si? ¿Cabello rojo? Él tiene una maldita gabardina. En realidad, para un chico mayor, es jodidamente hermoso,”  _ they heard Rictor hiss into the transponder.  _ I see him walking down the street. Tall guy, yeah? Red hair? He has a goddamn trench coat on. Actually, for an older guy, he's pretty fucking gorgeous. _

_ Oh jesus fucking christ,  _ Logan grumbled.

_ I love that he’s still wearing a trenchcoat,  _ Marie mused.

_ Kid, yer not making this easier for me,  _ Logan mumbled. 

“ _ Entendido. Ese es el _ ,” Marie muttered into the transponder, just as the waiter came by to check on her.  _ Copy. That’s him.  _

“ _ Café con leche, por favor _ ,” she muttered to the waiter, ordering a coffee, as Logan sat back impatiently in Marie’s mind and she sat, quite a deal more patiently, in her seat at the table. Laura had told Gambit he’d be meeting with a woman in her forties with dark hair and gloves on in the  _ La Sandina Cantina  _ at nine o’clock sharp. And it looked like the motherfucker was right on time. 

And then, Logan watched with horror as the mutant most officially known as Gambit entered into the bar. He wasn’t as fucking old as Logan hoped he would look, and in fact seemed to appear not a day older than maybe fucking forty five, although Logan was guessing he had to be around sixty. Logan had half-hoped he would have had a fucking cane and a pair of glasses and a limp, but no dice. The cajun still wore his hair a little longer, although Logan was pleased to see the beginnings of gray in it, and still had a fucking trench coat on, as Rictor had described. Logan was also displeased to see the same smarmy grin about him. And it was making Logan fucking growl inside Marie’s mind.

_ Quit it with the macho animal bullshit,  _ Marie hissed.  _ He just saw us. Pay attention!! _

That was true, because the man had quickly and easily laid eyes on Marie, and had smiled so wide that Logan wanted to be sick, and would have been, if he had the capacity to.  _ Shit. Motherfucking shit.  _ It wasn’t gonna go well. No way on fucking earth, in this fucking hellhole, it was going to go well.

“Well, as I live and breathe, it’s none other than the lovely Miss Rogue. A true southern belle indeed, ” Gambit said. All sorts of emotions were now bubbling up in Marie’s mind, and Logan was just trying to fucking hang on.  _ Nostalgia. Memory. Flattery. And was that… fuckin’ mild exhilleration?! _

_ Marie,  _ Logan growled, but she wasn’t listening, solely focused on the task at hand.

“Mr. Lebeau,” Marie said smoothly, as the fucking swamp rat leaned down and kissed the top of Marie’s hand.

_ I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna fucking kill him. Goddamn mother fucking FUCK,  _ Logan cursed inwardly.

_ Please do shut the hell up, sugar. Let me think!  _ Marie scolded as Gambit drew up a chair next to Marie. 

“Please! _Chere,_ now do call me Remy. And yes, I must admit, when I heard the peculiar rumor Xavier’s school might be startin’ up again, I had no idea, no idea at all, that _you_ , _bonita,_ of all people, might be involved, _”_ he said, before gesturing smoothly to the waiter.

“ _ Sí, señor?”  _ the man asked, who had appeared at their table as quickly as the cajun had gestured with his hand for him to do so. 

“ _ Una mimosa para la bella dama aquí, señor,”  _ Gambit said smoothly, and Logan could feel Marie’s cheeks flush a bit in embarrassment.

“It’s nice to see you again, Remy,” Marie said, gathering her courage up again and collecting herself. “Yes, it’s true. We  _ are _ revitalizing the X-Men. Me, and my daughter, Laura. Plus a few others,” Marie said calmly through a sip of her  _ café con leche.  _

“Daughter? Goodness, no! You’re too young to have a daughter,  _ petit,”  _ he said, although Logan could practically smell the acrid stench of formidable curiosity in his words. 

“My and Logan’s daughter,” Marie clarified, and Logan took in all the satisfaction he could as the smirk was wiped off the old bastard’s face.

“Well I’ll say,” the cajun muttered lowly after a few beats. “And where is that jealous old curmudgeon nowadays,  _ chere?”  _

“Dead,” Marie said calmly, her tone perfectly placid. At this, Logan watched as Gambit’s brows furrowed, trying to figure out what the hell was going on and if Marie was, indeed, telling the truth. Which, of course, she was. 

“Well, I’ll say. I do offer my apologies,  _ chere _ . I had  _ no idea.  _ I thought that stubborn sonofabitch would stay alive  _ forever.  _ But, I guess we all have a time to pass. Say now, and I don’t mean any disrespect by askin’, this didn’t have to do with that tragic Westchester Incident I used to hear so much about, did it?” Gambit said through a raise of one brow. He could feel Marie falter a bit at the cajun's pressing, as the memories of that time threatened to overwhelm her.

_ Stay focused. He’s trying to throw you off guard. And the bastard ain’t sorry. Not one bit,  _ Logan growled in her mind.

“No.  _ No.  _ It was...a few years after,” Marie said calmly. “We both survived...when Charles...well. When that happened. _ ”  _ At this, the swamp rat seemed to be at a loss of words for a moment, which was a good thing. Marie knew already that Gambit was an empath, and that lying didn’t serve her. It was best to be honest, but also fairly vague, offering up little in the way of real information but putting forth rightful feelings laced with real emotion first, just as they had rehearsed. So far, the plan was working. 

Just then, the server returned with a drink for Marie, and a coffee with foamed milk for the cajun, even though he hadn’t explicitly ordered anything.

_ They know his order. He’s been here before. Stay on guard,  _ Logan growled to Marie. 

“So, Mr. Lebeau-” Marie began.

“Ah,  _ chere.  _ Again, to  _ you,  _ I’m Remy,” he said through even, dark, red and black eyes. Logan was growling again, unable to help himself, even as Marie ignored him.

“Alright, Remy. To be honest with you, sugar, ya  _ did  _ call this meeting. You sold our tech wizard some very important parts on the black market. Parts that, I have to admit, made the Blackbird fly again. So we’re very grateful to you indeed. But I have to ask, quite simply, what do you want from us?” 

_ Good work playing up the southern fucking charm, kid. It’s workin’,  _ Logan couldn’t help but admit.

_ Once a southerner, always a southerner,  _ Marie chimed in.

“ _Want_ from you _?_ Darlin’! I simply wanted to be caught up, is all. You see, I’ve been out of the country for these past ten or fifteen years _._ So when I caught wind of a little exciting news _,_ I told myself I better hear it straight from the source. See if it was just _talk_ or if there was some truth to the matter,” Gambit nodded, taking a sip of his coffee through a wink.

_ He’s lying. Use yer nose, kid.  _

_ I know he’s lying, sugar. Again, kindly shut up.  _

“Remy,” Marie began, taking a sip of her mimosa before setting down. “I’m not entirely immune to your charm, but I also remember you. And it’s unlikely to me that you’d call us all the way here from Westchester for a little  _ news,”  _ Marie said evenly. “We are busy.”

“Busy you say? Now that’s a peculiar thing. Last I remembered all was fine and well in the state of Denmark, so to speak. Well, aside from that whole Transigen mess,” Remy said through a sip of coffee.

_ How the fuck does he know about Transigen?  _ Logan hissed, but Marie ignored him as Gambit continued on.

“And of course,  _ chere,  _ you caught me red handed. Still sharp as a tack, you are. And, might I say,  _ petit,  _ still as beautiful as ever. Can I ask, how  _ do  _ you manage to not look a day or two older than the last time I saw you?” 

_ Stay on target,  _ Logan warned.

“Why are you here?” Marie asked again, although there was a little more tension to her voice, and Logan could feel her eyes narrow. The cajun said nothing for a second, running his hand through his hair, breathing out steadily.

“Mmm, well. To be honest with you, darlin’, maybe ol Remy wants a little more than  _ news.  _ I’m sick of hearin’ things through the grapevine down south. So I got to thinkin’, if all this X-Men hearsay was  _ real,  _ maybe I want to help with this new...renovation project... you’ve got going on,  _ chere _ . Especially now that I know  _ you  _ might be involved.” 

At this, Marie outwardly laughed at his gratuitous flirting, and Remy frowned.  

_ That’s my girl. Take him down a notch. _

“Come on now, Remy. I remember Budapest. I know we asked you to stay on, and that you didn’t. Why would you want this now? Why does it matter to you?”

He said nothing for a moment, and Logan noticed that his eyes suddenly flitted this way and that around the bar. Logan tried to use Marie’s sense of smell and hearing to sense if anything peculiar was happening, but could find nothing. 

_ Something’s up.  _

_ What? What’s wrong? _

_ I don’t know yet. Use those senses I gave ya, but stay focused on him. _

“Well  _ chere _ ,” Gambit was saying. “Do forgive me for pointing this out, but that was nearly...well I’ll be damned, was that  _ twenty _ years ago? And you might not be giving ol’ Remy enough credit. I  _ was  _ a younger, more foolish man then. And besides...maybe some things that old professor of yours said back then stuck with me a little. Maybe I still think about some of those things, from time to time,” Gambit mumbled through another sip of coffee

_ He’s not lying,  _ Marie hissed to Logan.

_ Doesn’t matter, kid. He’s waiting for something. Watching for something. Stay on top of it. _

“ _ Rogue. ¿Necesitas ayuda?”  _ suddenly Rictor chirped in her ear.  _ Do you need help? _

“ _No,”_ she said to Rictor, and when Remy looked to her quizzically, she cleared her throat to clarify. “I mean... the professor...yes. He told us all things that have...stayed with us.” 

Gambit’s eyes narrowed, and Logan once more growled. 

_ He knows Rictor’s with you. _

“Indeed,” Gambit was saying. “Indeed, I’m sure he must have.”

“ _ Rogue. Tres hombres corpulentos que buscan causar problemas se dirigieron al bar. ¿Debo intervenir? _ ” Rictor said in her ear.  _  Rogue. Three big men looking to cause trouble headed for the bar. Should I intervene?  _

_ Aw, fuck,  _ Logan cursed, and then everything changed. The men had smashed their way in and stormed toward the table, shouting in Spanish. Marie instantly stood, and so did Gambit, and Logan didn’t miss the telltale hint of an ace of spades the swamp rat had just slipped from one pocket.

_ “¡Ahí está la comadreja. Será mejor que tengas nuestro dinero, pedazo de mierda. ¡El jefe ha terminado contigo!”  _ the largest of the three men was saying. Marie was stock still, and Logan was growling in her mind, as her eyes flitted to Rictor, who also was standing now from the far side of the room, to Gambit, who was swallowing hard. Marie lifted a subtle hand to tell Rictor to wait, as she watched what was folding out in front of her. 

_ Be ready to use those claws, kid.  _

“Gentleman! Gentleman!  _ ¡Por favor! Los modales frente a la dama!”  _ Remy said, gesturing with his free hand to Marie, and all three men were looking at her threateningly now. 

“ _ El dinero, comadreja,” _ the largest one grunted again.

“ _ Bueno, que coincidencia! Me estaba reuniendo con mi benefactor ... _ ” Remy gestured to Rogue. _ Well, what a coincidence! I was meeting with my benefactor... _ And then Rogue  herself was growling as she realized what the swamp rat was up to. 

“You have to be fucking  _ kidding me,  _ Gambit,” Marie snarled. 

“Indeed,  _ chere,  _ I am not. You see here, after a little heist of mine went south I do indeed owe the Mexican cartel about forty thousand dollars. So either I need the money or I need a jet ride  _ fuera de este país horrible _ ,” Remy said hurriedly.

_ I fucking knew it,  _ Logan snarled. 

“ _ Vete a la mierda,”  _ Marie hissed to all of them, just as watched the first man retrieve a glock from his jacket, and Logan heard the telltale  _ thrum  _ of Gambit charging a card.

_ Get down!  _ Logan shouted, and then the bar erupted in a shower of chaos and gunfire. The ace of spades had exploded toward the corner of the bar, and everyone was screaming and running for the entrance. Gambit had disappeared, and Marie dodged to the left, shouting in pain for a moment as she felt a bullet graze the side of her right arm. Meanwhile, the ground was beginning to shake beneath everyone’s feet, obviously the work of Rictor executing the emergency escape plan. 

“ _ Evacuate,  _ Rictor. And sink the other cars! _ ”   _ Marie yelled into the transponder and then she was racing for the door in a cloud of smoke. She could hear the earth outside the building tremble and start to quake. People were still screaming as a jet black car rolled up in the only spot where the ground wasn’t shaking, and then they were all climbing in quickly, Marie in the back and Rictor driving, but before she could even register what was happening, Gambit had opened the other rear passenger door and climbed inside and slammed the door behind him.

Marie snarled, throwing her left arm to the cajun’s neck, effectively pinning the older mutant to the rear partition, and released two claws on the other hand, either claw now on the side of Gambit's face as he was cursing a string of profanities.

“ _ Rogue!”  _ Rictor shouted.

“Just drive, Rictor! _ ”  _ Marie snarled, and then whipped her head back to the man she had pinned to the seat. He struggled underneath her, but didn’t dare try to force him off her. Logan wondered if he even could. Along with everything else, Marie had absorbed and acquired Logan’s genetic propensity for strength all those years ago, although she rarely had the opportunity before now to use it. Gambit coughed against Marie’s left arm that was still against his throat, and she relaxed it infinitesimally, just so Gambit could get a hold of himself enough to choke out a few words. 

“ _ Chere,  _ please. Let’s not... _ merde,  _ woman...let’s not be unreasonable, now. And be careful with what you do with those things, _ ” _ he was pleading, staring wildly at the claws jutting through Marie’s hand.

_ Pain. Pain. Pain. Rage. Anger. Betrayal.  _ All things he could feel in Marie.

“You two-timing, lying son of a fucking  _ bitch,”  _ she hissed to Gambit. 

“Now there. I didn’t expect you to actually  _ pay _ them,  _ chere _ . I’m just looking for a little  _ ride  _ on a jet headed stateside, _ ”  _ Gambit was saying, even as Marie forced her claws higher.

Logan was enjoying every fucking minute of this, although he wanted the fucking cajun out of the goddamn car as soon as possible.

_ Tell Rictor to pull over and kick his ass out. _

_ No.  _

_ What the fuck do you mean ‘no’?! _

_ He’s useful. _

_ Fuck. No. No way. Don’t even think about it. Don’t do this, kid. _

“So you want back into the United States for some reason, and you needed us to get you there. To rescue you from your current _financial_ _situation_. And to probably help you cross the border, _yes?!_ ” Marie was seething. 

Gambit only nodded meekly. At this, Marie snarled.

“And all that shit you said about the X-Men, about Charles. Lies?!”

“ _ Petit,  _ please listen. I don’t understand why I can’t both  _ care  _ about X-Men and find a way out of this... _ jesus... _ this disgusting country. And while the fact that you’ve got  _ claws  _ coming out of your hands and you’re getting blood over ol’ Remy’s coat is  _ highly  _ interesting to me,  _ chere _ , I  _ insist  _ you reconsider your attempt to  _ murder me _ and…nghhh!” he stopped talking as Marie applied more pressure to his throat. 

“Gut him, Marie,” Rictor was saying.

_ Push him out of the fucking car.  _

“ _ Chere,  _ please...ngghh…. listen-”

“Would all three of you  _ shut the hell up?!! _ !” Marie seethed, before instantly sheathing her claws in a hiss of pain, climbing off the Cajun and breathing heavily as she sat back on her side of the seat. Remy finally breathed, whipping a hand up to his throat to massage it, trying to collect himself.

“You know what?” she finally breathed turning to look at him once more through a sneer.

_ Marie,  _ Logan warned.

“Why not?” Marie finished, staring between Rictor and Gambit tiredly.

“ _ Que?”  _ Rictor spat, taking his eyes off the dirt road for a moment to throw her a look.

“I do thank you-”

“Rictor, eyes on the road, and drive faster. Just because you threw all the cars into a sinkhole doesn't mean they can’t catch up to us. And shut up and listen,  _ Gambit,”  _ Marie said throwing daggers at the older mutant currently in the back seat

“You owe us now, you conniving bastard. You want us to clear your ass? You need a place to hide? Then you work for  _ us.  _ For as long as I  _ say,”  _ Marie finally breathed, wiping the sweat away from her forehead in frustration.

_ No fucking way,  _ Logan roared.  _ No way this bastard’s living in our house after the shit he just pulled.  _

“That wasn’t really in  _ the cards,  _ so to say, for me. You see, I consider myself  _ retired _ …” the Cajun was saying.

“That’s the deal. It’s that or I stab you in the thigh and roll you out of this car into the Mexican desert. I’m sure the cartel will catch up with you eventually,” Marie spat. Gambit looked at her wildly for a moment, before wiping back his own hair, sighing as he did so. 

“Fine.  _ Deal _ ,” he muttered.

_ You can’t be fucking serious. What the HELL are you thinking? _

_ I’m the lead on this mission. It’s  _ my _ decision,  _ Marie snapped, and Logan snarled as he sat back in her mind, still teeming with rage. For a while, no one spoke, as the car made its last leg toward the abandoned hangar.

And then, after a few minutes, the cajun stared down at Marie’s bloodstained hands, and then back up to her face.

“You...killed the old sonofabitch, didn’t you,  _ chere _ ? That’s why you took that bullet back there in the arm, no problem. Why you don’t look a day over forty. How old  _ are _ you anyway?” 

Just then, before Logan couldn’t even register what her intentions were, Marie reached over and slapped the older mutant across the face. Hard. 

“ _ Putain d'enfer! _ ” Gambit shouted, clutching his jaw in pain.

“Never-- _ never--  _  ask a woman’s age to her  _ face _ ,” Marie spat, and for a moment not one of the men, living or dead, said anything, and the car was entirely silent, before Marie finally muttered. “I’m tired. Rictor, please take us  _ home.” _

  
  
  


\--

 

“You did  _ what?”  _ Logan heard Laura’s livid voice through the phone Marie was holding.

“It was a decision made quickly, in the moment,” Marie grumbled to her daughter. They were currently on the Blackbird hurtling back to Westchester, and Marie had been dreading this phone call since they had left Mexico. Logan hadn’t said much to the woman, as pissed as he still was, and now it seemed that Laura was gonna share some of his sympathies and do the work of complaining about Marie’s decision for him.

“So...he’s on the plane with you? Right now?” Laura asked. Marie glanced up from the control panel to behind her, where Rictor was currently watching Gambit snore in his chair. Rictor turned to Marie, shrugging his shoulders.

“He fell asleep,” Rictor mouthed to Marie.

“Dear lord,” Marie mumbled, before focusing her attention back to Laura. 

“Yes,” she said simply.

“Mom, just by what you’re telling me, we can’t trust him. What’s he gonna do here? Even if he doesn’t sneak off the moment the plane’s on the ground, he’ll likely steal some of our tech and sell it. Or worse,” Laura was saying.

“Hey! You knew his track record! And  _ you  _ set up the meeting!” 

“I said a  _ meeting!  _ Not a fucking  _ homecoming!”  _ Laura growled. 

“Listen,  _ hija.  _ I really don’t think he’s gonna do any of those things. I think…” Marie stopped for a moment, glancing back to a snoring Gambit, “I think he’s had it rough for a few years. I really think he’ll stay. Maybe even help.”

“And what’s dad think about all this?” Laura interjected.

“What? You don’t trust my judgment? You father wasn’t leading this mission. I was,” Marie huffed.

“ _ What?  _ What does that even  _ mean _ ? Just so you know, I consider you a package deal. If you aren’t capable of making decisions together why should I trust you to-”

“-Excuse me, for a moment,  _ niña,”  _ Marie cut her off. “I have my own fucking autonomy, and it’s not in my  _ fucking DNA  _ to agree with your father over every piddly thing.

“ _ Piddly?  _ Mom, this isn’t about how many fucking sugars to put in your goddamn coffee. You’re bringing Gambit, a member of the Thieves Guild, here. To our home. I’m supposed to lead my first debrief to ten minutes after you arrive. What am I gonna tell everybody?”

“To get ready to meet him? I don’t know!” Marie was saying. 

“Jesus, mom.  _ Me haces querer beber!  _ And just so we’re clear, Dad is  _ not  _ on board with any of this?!” Laura breathed into the phone.

_ Fuck no,  _ Logan said, the first time he was able to get a word in edgewise since the two women started squabbling.

“He…” Marie sighed for a minute, rubbing her temples in frustration. “He says no, he’s not.”

“Perfect. That’s  _ fucking  _ perfect. The last thing I need is you two disagreeing,” Laura muttered. 

“ _ Hey.  _ We were ambushed. I had to think quickly, I saw the state Remy was in. He’s out of money, he needed help. He did it in his stupid Gambit way, and trust me, I scared the  _ shit  _ out of him. I even...I did the thing your Dad used to do where you keep in the middle claw and threaten to stab him through the head…”

“What the  _ fuck  _ are you talking about…”

_ Yeah. That is a classic, kid. I’ll give you that  _

“Nevermind. Anyway… again, you trusted me enough to send me, _alone_ I might add, on the mission, so trust my choices I made during that mission. That’s X-Men 101, honey. He’s a powerful mutant, you said so yourself. I think...Laura...I think he’ll help us. Of his own free will,” Marie finished, and the plane was already alerting them that it was nearing Westchester. 

“ _ Fuck.  _ Fine. Ok. But I’m calling in everyone for the debrief. The War Room is finished, and I’m sure they’ll wanna meet him. Forge will probably want his  _ fucking autograph,”  _ Laura hissed into the phone before rudely hanging up on her mother. 

_ Kid. I told you that- _

“That _ fucking  _ girl and her  _ goddamn temper!!”   _ Marie shouted to no one in particular, which silenced Logan and which made Gambit jump awake once more. She was breathing heavily as she whipped her head back around to Rictor and Gambit, both of them staring at her wildly, as Logan stayed silent. 

“You,” she breathed to the cajun, “Better be on your goddamn  _ best  _ behavior. As long as you keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told, you might actually get fed and have a roof over your head tonight,” she hissed, please to see Gambit was nodding enthusiastically in agreement. 

“ _ Of course, petit,”  _ he was saying, looking to Rictor confusedly for an explanation for what had pissed her off. Rictor, once more, simply shrugged his shoulders. 

“ _ Madres e hijas _ ,” he said simply, to which the cajun nodded once, facing forward again.   
  
  


\--

 

Logan watched as all of them, the six mutants and one human, settled awkwardly around the pristine stainless steel conference table in the War Room for the first time. Laura had kept her promise, and when Marie had landed the jet underneath the basketball court, all the others, Dani, Derek, Forge and Laura, were there to greet them. 

As they walked off the jetway, Logan could tell Laura was still enraged as hell, but she held it together enough to formally extend her hand for Gambit to shake, the cajun making the wise choice to skip the pomp and circumstance of kissing it or some other sort of crap, because, whether or not he knew it, Laura would have probably sliced off his head. At least the cajun had enough sense, it seemed, to know who was in charge. 

“War Room. Now,” was all Laura said to Marie, and the band of mutants followed behind her down the long gray hall to reconvene.

It was an oddly familiar scene. The same long stainless steel table, the same bright fluorescent lighting. Only the computers had changed, replaced by state-of-the art haloprojectors, and, of course the people. One thing Marie did have right: out of the glare of the Mexican sun, Gambit did seem substantially older, noting the scruff on his jawline and the worn edges of his coat, and Logan realized he seemed nervous, like he was being hurled into an involuntary job interview for a position he didn’t want.  Dani looked edgy, on high alert as she glared at Gambit. She had already met him once, briefly as a student, when Gambit had “subbed” for one of Logan’s fight clubs while Logan was off on an extended mission. “ _ More like he fuckin’ hijacked it,”  _ Logan had remembered saying. But it was obvious that, despite their previous encounter, she was highly suspicious of him. Logan watched as she shot a glance back to Derek, who looked a little overwhelmed, swallowing hard. Rictor kept looking over to Laura, but otherwise seemed composed. Forge looked alright, albeit a little stunned. “ _ He looks exactly like he does in the comics. Trench coat and all,”  _ Logan had heard Forge hiss to Laura on the jetway, although Laura hadn’t said anything in response. Now his daughter was sitting at the head of the table, in Slim’s old spot, Marie directly to her right, and Gambit on Marie’s other side, as the first official X-Men debriefing in twenty years began. 

“Alright,” Laura said, clearing her throat, and he could tell she was using everything in her power to control her anger. “Thanks to some serious bribes, we were able to get this room renovated just in time for actually needing it,” Laura said. “And we all owe Forge a round of drinks for working his ass off to get the tech running in here, too, so be sure to thank him,” Laura said, nodding to Forge, before shooting a glance at Gambit once more.

“I would like Rogue to formally debrief us in a minute, but first, obviously we know there is a new person among us,” Laura was saying. “So Gambit, is it?” Laura asked, turning to the older mutant. The cajun was currently staring at Laura with a certain outright curiosity, but answered nevertheless.

“Yes. But my friends call me Remy. Remy LeBeau. And it’s...Laura, yes? Wolverine’s daughter?” he asked carefully. Laura frowned, turning to Marie with blame in her eyes once more. 

_ She’s so fucking angry with me,  _ Marie murmured inwardly to Logan. 

_ She has a right to be,  _ Logan grumbled.

“I am,” Laura said, answering Gambit, an impassive, unreadable expression on her face. “I was genetically fostered from his DNA and a  _ latina  _ woman I never knew, although she likely was forced to endure the extent of an entire pregnancy to make me, and then was most likely killed afterward. I spent my childhood learning how to be lethal. My claws were coated with adamantium, and by ten I could kill anyone on sight, if prompted. I...we…” Laura paused, looking to Rictor with a sadness that pierced Logan’s proverbial heart, “managed to escape. At eleven, I escaped help of a nurse, Gabriela _.  _ She found my father taking care of an aging Charles Xavier, who I had been communicating with telepathically. Logan saved us, drove us north, until Transigen found us. Charles was killed by one of Transigen’s experiments, and then Logan, although almost mortally wounded, due to a slowing healing factor and several stab wounds, continued to drive me north to find Eden, which we found abandoned. As he healed, we continued to drive north and eventually settled in Canada, where, with the help of Alpha Flight, we located Marie. We lived as a family there. Marie adopted me. We were happy, until his healing factor diminished to the point where he asked Marie to absorb him instead of experiencing the pain of adamantium poisoning any longer. She did, and we buried his body in the backyard of our home in Hay River. However, Mr. Lebeau, I must warn you, whatever you say out loud, to this room, Logan can hear, as Marie is harboring his entire consciousness, along with the extent of his powers, in her body and mind. So...putting it bluntly... _ don’t fuck with us.” _

The room was stunned into silence by this blatant and honest admission, and while on any other occasion Logan might have been pissed with how much information she had shared, he realized, from the moment she started talking, what she was doing. Tell the whole truth, put all the cards on the table, have nothing to hide. And then you can’t help but trust her.

_ It’s a fucking power play,  _ Logan murmured.

The fucking swamp rat was speechless, as he quite literally opened his mouth and then shut it again, before finally muttering, “ _ Merde.  _ You  _ are  _ Wolverine’s daughter.” 

“It would be nice, Mr. Lebeau, if you could return the favor tell us a little bit more about yourself,” Laura addressed him in front of the room. Suddenly Gambit looked entirely uncomfortable as all eyes landed on him. The black and red of his irises flitted from young person to young person, then quickly back to Marie, who shrugged her shoulders at him. He cleared his throat, and once more more he looked tired, as he began to speak.

“Well...I…” he began and then stopped, turning to look Laura directly in the eye once more. “Your honesty,  _ petit,  _ I have to say, is quite refreshing. I can admit now, I wasn’t being...entirely straight with you when I first reached out to ask you to meet me. I needed help getting stateside, and when I sold some  _ very specific  _ parts to your people, I knew you had her. The Blackbird, I mean. I knew it was my ticket out.”

“Out of  _ what?”  _ Dani hissed from across the room, still staring daggers at Gambit.

“A situation one often finds themselves in when you try to tango with the Mexican cartel. A price on my head after a deal went bad. I...also...didn’t grow up with parents. I was raised by the Thieves Guild _ , chere.  _ So I was raised to  _ steal.  _ It’s what I do. And I’ve been doing it for a very, very long time,” Gambit muttered. 

“That’s  _ not  _ all it,” Marie suddenly murmured under her breath, and everyone looked to her. “Gambit also worked as an X-Man for two months many years back. He saved all of our lives--Ororo, Jean, Scott, Bobby, Logan’s and mine-- by getting us out of a sprawling maze in an underground compound in Budapest. So, what I mean to say, is Mr. Lebeau undersells himself,” Marie murmured, nodding quietly to Gambit, who smiled slightly back. Logan’s anger flared then, and he could feel Laura’s did, too.

“And Transigen, you said?” Gambit once more looked to Laura. “My team a few years back was stealing from them. Trying to dismantle their network. I lost some...very good friends, dear friends, during that heist. Another failed mission,” he muttered to himself. For a moment, no one spoke, until Forge suddenly felt the need to blurt out a very stupid question.

“So...are you trying to tell us...you’re not a very  _ good  _ thief?” Forge asked, and Marie almost laughed out loud. The cajun frowned, sitting up in his chair once more.

“I don’t know who you think you are,  _ homme, _ but I once stole a Picasso from the  _ Louvre  _ completely and entirely unnoticed. So yes, I’m good. Especially when I work on my  _ own,”  _ Gambit grumbled.

“Like the comics,” Forge said.

_ Here we go,  _ Logan grumbled.

“Excuse me?” Gambit asked.

“Uhh…. Mr. Gambit, sir, I read the comics. That story about the Picasso is in the comics. So all of that is true, then? Especially about what you  _ can  _ do? What do you call it, exactly, what you do?” Forge blurted, and everyone looked a little nervous as they stared up at the cajun once more.

“Kinetic conversion and acceleration, my friend,” he muttered to the younger mutant.

“So you literally blow shit up?” Forge asked.

“I like to think I do it with a little more _ class _ than that,  _ homme,  _ but yes. Apart from other...talents,” he finished.

“Enough talk,” Laura interrupted. “Rogue. Could you formally debrief us?” Laura interjected.

Marie glared at her daughter, and then cleared her throat. 

“So I was under the impression from Mr. Lebeau here that he was showing interest in joining the X-Men once more. As he’s made fairly clear, he actually wanted a jet ride out of Mexico. We didn’t happen upon that little fact until three very angry looking men stormed the bar and demanded money. Mr. Lebeau, in a poor lapse of judgment, told them I could pay, as I was his benefactor. I kindly told everyone to fuck off, and the place became chaos. Rictor executed the emergency plan of sinking all the other cars, and then we made our way to our vehicle, until Mr. Lebeau thought it was a good idea to jump in the car with us. I threatened him with words and...physical violence... before making call that in exchange for his safe passage to the US and harboring him here at the X-Mansion, Mr. Lebeau is to serve the X-Men for as long as we see fit,” Marie said.

“What a riveting tale. And I do thank you,  _ chere.  _ Like you said...a home cooked meal and a roof over my head would be a nice change of pace,” he muttered, once again crossing his arms.

Logan caught Laura rolling her eyes, before muttering, “You’ll have to take it up with Marie on the home cooked meal part. She does all the cooking around here.”

At this, Gambit let out a low whistle.

“Well, ain’t that something. She’s been feeding all you kids this long? You’re lucky folks, getting to eat her cookin’. However, if you’re ever in need of a break,  _ chere,  _ I’m happy to give it to you. Ol’ Remy certainly knows his way around a pot and a stove, mind, you gotta like food with a little cajun flair if you sit at my table.”

Logan could feel Marie smile a little at this, and nothing short of outright envy coursed through Logan’s consciousness, although he remained silent.

“Alright. Mr. Lebeau, we...uhh... welcome you. We’ll get you a room. The faculty wing has finished undergoing renovation,” Laura said. To that, Remy perked up again, looking to Laura once more.

“Faculty? Dear lord,  _ petit,  _ are you sayin’ you plannin on making this here mansion a  _ school  _ again?” 

“Yes,” Laura said simply blinking at him. “The mutant population is growing, and will explode in the next handful of years. They will need us.”

“Well I’ll be damned. Times, they are a changin’,” Gambit said, running a hand along his jawline. 

“And one last thing. LeBeau? Our surveillance is up and running. And Forge, who built it, is a mechanical genius. So if you try to  _ pull  _ anything, we will be promptly alerted,” Laura let out a low growl which had Remy putting up his hands a little in surrender.

“Noted,  _ chere,”  _ he mumbled.

_ He could slip past anything we have,  _ Logan mumbled.

_ Doesn’t matter. He’ll stay,  _ Marie murmured. 

_ Seems like you want him to,  _ Logan growled.

_ Oh grow up, sugar. Can’t anyone else but me see his importance?  _

“Ok. Moving on,” Laura said, standing to pull up a projection of several pages of handwritten notes that looked unfamiliar to both Logan and Marie. 

“I met with a woman this morning in the city named Astrid Bloom, a telepathic mutant,” Laura was saying.

_ Shit. The telepath.  _ Logan grumbled.  _ I almost fucking forgot. _

“She’s the head of a PR firm called  _ Foundation  _ in the city, and although I took this meeting in her office, she is interested in working independently to establish a brand for the school.”

“A...brand?” Dani asked suddenly.

“Yeah. She thinks we should focus on the mutant angle.  _ Advertise  _ we’re a school for mutants, since we’re still in the public favor, mostly. She thinks it will helps us stay that way,” Laura said carefully. 

“That’s not how the professor used to do it,” Dani said through a small frown.

“I know. She thinks we need a change. A facelift of sorts,” Laura said,  but Logan was becoming steadily distracted from what his daughter was saying by what his daughter was  _ doing. _

_ She’s hiding somethin’,  _ Logan muttered to Marie. 

_ What makes you say that? I don’t smell anything off,  _ Marie said thinly, still angered by his latest remarks to her about Gambit.

_ Something about the way she’s standing. Somethin’ in her posture.  _

Meanwhile, Laura was still talking, moving the slides forward on the haloprojector. 

“Dr. Bloom holds a doctorate in Mutant Studies from Yale and wrote her dissertation on Charles and his legacy. What you’re looking at here are her personal notes from that work,” Laura said, flipping through the pages. 

“And she’s a telepath, you say?” surprisingly, it was Gambit who spoke. Laura paused, looking back to the swamp rat with a suspicious lift of her eyebrow.

“ _ Yes,”  _ Laura answered. 

“And she said nothin’ about  _ that  _ part? I don’t know about you kids, but, in my experience, you can’t trust many telepaths. The professor, of course, being a rare and fine exception, god rest his soul,” the cajun muttered, and for once in his life, Logan found himself fucking agreeing with the man. Something in Laura’s face changed then; something became dangerous

“That’s a stereotype,” Laura said through gritted teeth. At this, Gambit outwardly laughed, propping a dusty boot up on the table, now, and Logan could feel Marie cringe. 

_ He ain’t taking your advice to heart. About behaving himself. Big fucking surprise,  _ Logan mumbled.

_ Sugar, I killed you as a mercy. And it damn near killed  _ me.  _ Maybe do me a favor and shut up every once in a while out of fucking gratitude.  _

_ Ouch, darlin’.  _

_ You asked for it.  _

“ _ They  _ say that it is,” Gambit was saying. “And ain’t stereotypes based off  _ some  _ truths,  _ chere?”  _ Gambit asked. To that, Laura outrightly growled, loudly, and Remy stared at Laura once more.

“Wolverine's’ daughter  _ indeed _ ,” he muttered, and then Logan was snarling inside Marie’s mind at the cajun again. 

“Nevertheless,” Laura ground out, continuing on. “She admitted to being a telepath and described her experience as thinking she was the only mutant left. A hardship, Mr. Lebeau,  _ you  _ and your generation did not have to fucking endure,” Laura growled, and the silence in the room was deafening.

_ Whatever happened during that meeting, this woman sold Laura,  _ Logan murmured to Marie.

“Did the transponder help at least, Laura?” Forge suddenly asked, and as Logan heared what his daughter said next, he realized, instantly, it was dripping in insincerity and falsehood. 

“I decided not to use it. I figured she would notice, and I wanted to enter the meeting as honestly and as forthright as possible,” Laura lied.

_ Holy shit. Are you...do you hear that, smell that? She’s lying!  _ Marie murmured to Logan.

_ I know kid. It’s fucking obvious. But the question is….why?  _

“Anyway, she’s going to a send by a proposal in a few days with plans for her work, and if we decide we like it, we can hire as a contractor,” Laura said.

“And do you trust her, Laura?” Dani asked, blinking tiredly. Logan wasn’t sure if the other mutant also sensed something off about Laura’s response about the transponder, but her question was still a good one. Laura said nothing for a moment, glancing to Remy and then to Marie, before looking back up to Dani.

“I do,” Laura said, and for the ones who could sense it, through smell alone or because of a empathetic connection, they knew that, at least on this point, she was telling the truth. 

The question remained though:  _ why?  _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the lovely @bluefrogsbestfrogs for the beta work. If you haven't read her new story "Compromised" please go do so now. It's full of smutty, dark, sexy Rogan goodness.


End file.
